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THE 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE; 



OR, 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



THE WORLD'S CHILD, 



BY THE AUTHOR. 



*r- 



" Honor and shame from no condition rise ; 
Act well your part ; there all the honor lies." 




BOSTON: 
PUBLISHED BY BELA MARSH, 



14 BEOMPIELD ST. 

185 7. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, 
By WARREN CHASE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



STEREOTYPED BY 

HOBART AND ROB BINS, 

BOSTON. 



PREFACE 



This little volume — a true and literal history of the 
struggles of an ardent and ambitious mind to rise from 
a dishonorable birth, and the lowest condition of pov- 
erty and New England slavery — is published more for 
a guide and advice to those who live in the humble 
walks of life, and for a rebuke on the tyrannical and 
malignant spirit of arrogant and selfish individuals and 
societies, who ever attempt to trample upon and despise 
such reformers as attempt to rise, by individual effort, 
to distinction or fame, than for the book market, or for 
the pecuniary reward it may bring the author. The 
name is only left in obscurity to those who are unac- 
quainted with the subject of the narrative ; and to such 
it is of no value. The subject of the narrative has 
passed to a plane of reconciliation and harmony, in 
which he feels only a spirit of forgiveness for those 
whose consciences have already punished them for their 
physical abuse, or moral and religious misrepresenta- 
tions, slanders, and falsehoods, or their political curses. 
In every relation and condition of life he is now beyond 
their shafts, and hence is in a condition to forgive. 
As the persecuted Jesus, when the malignity of his 
enemies had done its worst, and he was about to triumph 
in the personal demonstration of his own theory, could 
afford to forgive Peter and Judas, and say of those who 
took his life, " Father, forgive them : for they know not 



IV PEFACE. 

what they do ; " so the Lone One has often exclaimed of 
those who attempted to crucify his reputation, and 
destroy his efforts to make others happy, " They are 
forgiven : for they know not what they do." 

" Speak gently to the erring one, 
For, ! ye may not know 
The untold weight of suffering 
That bows his spirit low. 

" A kind and gentle word, perchance, 
May call all back to him, — 
The pleasant dreams of early youth, 
Ere the light of life was dim. 

" Harsh words may be the only ones 
His ear hath ever heard ; 
Then like an angel's loving voice 
Will sound your gentle word. 

11 In joyous hours, with friends around, 
Rich with the love they give, 
You hear of wicked deeds, and say, 
He is not fit to live. 

" But only think, if yours had been, 
Like his, a cheerless life, 
Your soul, perchance, might then have been, 
Like his, as full of strife. 

" There 's seldom found a heart so hard 
But love may enter in ; 
And love hath ever magic power 
To chase away all sin. 

« Then spare not gentle words, that bring 
The erring unto God, 
To learn that life is beautiful, 
When spent in doing good." 



LIFE-LISE OF THE LOSE ONE. 



CHAPTER I, 

FIRST DECADE OF THE LONE ONE. 

The Unwelcome Birth. — The Unhappy Childhood. — The Untimely Deaths. — 
The Uncharitable Bondage. — The Unmerciful Treatment. 

Section I. 

THE IMPERFECT LINEAGE, 

Not long after the Pilgrim Fathers made their homes on the 
rocky and bleak coast of Massachusetts, a vessel from the Euro- 
pean side of the ocean landed, among her passengers, from the 
"sea-girt isle," three brothers, who brought to this country the 
name which has since gained many a niche in the records of our 
country's local and general history, and which may now be seen 
permanently or temporarily posted in many business villages of the 
nation, but which I shall dispense with, as too common for my 
narrative. The history of these three brothers, and of several 
generations of their descendants, is robed in a mantle of obscurity, 
and cannot now be easily unwrapped and spread before their de- 
scendants, even by those who seek through it a fortune of dollars. 
Most that is well known is, that they had Abraham's blessing, to 
increase and multiply. It is deeply to be regretted that there are 
not more and better words on the hard old granite and marble 
tomb-stones of New England, bearing to us more of the history of 
the each one each bears the name of. But our Christian style 
of epitaphing brings us little knowledge, except the name of the 
1* 



6 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

person whose body lies under the stone. Had the sextons placed 
over the graves permanent records of the three great events which 
constitute the important part of many lives, — birth, marriage, and 
death, — it would often aid the searcher after lineage, when the 
human posts with memory-marks had all been swept away by the 
merciless besom of time. ur generation has a better chance of leav- 
ing individual records on the blank pages in the grave-yard of Jewish 
history furnished us by the Bible societies ; which records may be 
of more value to coming generations than the printed pages, when 
the march of science has carried away the idolatry and superstition 
of this age, and the centuries have removed the tall steeples and 
stingy creeds of the nineteenth Christian century. 

But we must still grope among the tomb-records, to renew the 
search after the lineage of the Lone One. We find the records of 
both grave-yards very imperfect, from which we can only glean 
sufficient to make out the following : In the third, fourth, or fifth 
generation of these three brothers, among the descendants of the 
one of them who bore the singular cognomen of Aquila, was a 
family of eight children — four sons and four daughters. The 
younger of the four sons joined a small group of hardy pioneers, 
who had procured a title to a piece of God's earth (from some 
regular descendant of the original owner, as is supposed by the 
land reformers, who assert that God never gave any " fee simple " 
title-deeds, but only heirships), then far up in the wild regions of 
New Hampshire, on a small stream now called Suncook. Near 
the middle of the eighteenth century this little group began to fell 
the tall old pines and sorry-looking hemlocks, and let down the 
sunlight and dews upon the soil and rocks (mostly rocks) of this 
little spot of their heavenly Father's earth ; or rather on their own 
spot, for they had bought a few acres of surface running inward 
to a point at the centre of the globe, but not outward, for the at- 
mosphere and sunlight were still owned by the Father, and free 
for the use of all his children. They arranged the trees across 
the rattling Suncook, and, the river being dammed and heaped 
up, its waters, in their wrath, plunged, foaming in madness, over 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 7 

the obstacle, such as no red man had ever placed in their way ; 
or, forced through the narrow aperture, for many years turned a 
clattering old mill-wheel, to make boards for the settlers; or, 
twirling the circular and poised rock, cracked the corn for the 
lesser grinders of the bipeds. Long ago the mill was " torn away, 
and a factory dark and high looms like a tower " beside the stream. 
How changed the place in a century ! And what is a century in the 
midst of eternal time ? Not even as a drop in the ocean. The red 
man and his fur-clad quadruped companions are gone [where ?] ; and 
civilized man, with his domesticated animals and labor-saving 
machinery, his cottage homes, his noisy shops, and busy stores, has 
taken their place, and driven them, not to, but beyond, the wall. 
Wonder often seized the red man, as he watched his white Cain- 
like brothers fell the trees, remove the rocks, till the soil, build 
warmer wigwams, and plant more " heap of corn ; " but he passed 
in wonder away, stupefied in soul, and poisoned in body, by the 
rum and tobacco of God's whiter Christian children. Now the 
spires of the Puritan's descendants point upward in place of the 
red man's forest spires, from which, two centuries ago, the prayers 
and praises of man and beast were sounded to the sky in simple 
strains of nature's music, as acceptable to God as the best harmo- 
nies of our time. Now the slender fingers of the factory-girl guide 
the cotton thread, through whirling machinery, into webs of sheet- 
ing, to wrap the more tender forms of the white mother's babes of 
a Christian land ; but it is not certain that these babes or mothers 
live purer lives, or give more pure devotion to God, than did the 
fur-clad mothers and naked babes of the forest-homes ; and certain 
it is that the belief in a future life entertained by the red man of 
the forest was far more natural, more rational, more honorable to 
God, and more desirable to man, than that of the Christian which 
has supplanted it. 

Soon after a shanty was prepared by this descendant of Aquila 
wide enough for two, the loved one, selected from the daughters of 
a neighboring settlement, came to share its hardships with the 
occupant. Not a score of moons had been reported, new or old, 



8 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

ere the pair had to make room for a third, a darling boy, whose 
origin was between them ; the first white face of male child born in 
the settlement, and of course it would have a place and name. 
Simon (not Simon Peter) was the cognomen by which this shanty 
boy was designated from his fellows. When peopling the settle- 
ment by births was fairly begun, it was not carried on slowly in 
the several homes, but especially in this one. The family record 
was soon filled up ; for Simon's name was followed by eleven 
more, marking, as milestones, the line of domestic life, nearly in 
biennial periods. Seven received female names, rights, and duties, 
and five male names, rights, and duties. The eldest, born when 
the trials and hardships of life were most severe, was of course the 
brightest and smartest, although the parents were less developed 
and matured than at the birth of Joseph (for they had a Joseph). 
Two of the dozen went early and young to reside on the other side 
of Jordan, " to join a choir of juvenile singers in the land of 
spirits." Four more have since followed them, at various times, 
and six were still lingering here in the autumn of 1855,, time- 
worn humanity-marks of the last century, and of the gene- 
ration which has been mainly transplanted into the other life. 
The old pioneer parents, too, whose hold on life enabled them to stay 
almost a century on earth, and live more than half a century in 
wedded life, have joined those, who, according to the new theory 
of spirit-spheres, are living in families and societies of harmonious 
and congenial life in the land of the dead. ? T is a beautiful thought, 
whether true or not, for the lone pilgrim here, that, at the end of 
life's journey, he or she shall lay the " staff and sandals down " 
for the wreath and robe of a brighter and happier home, and join 
there, in happy life, the " loved ones gone before." 

We have now done nearly all we can to register the genealogy 
of the Lone One, and will here leave the ancestors, all except the 
first-born of the sons of the new settlement. Of him we have more 
to say, for, in matured life, he became the father of the Lone One, 
by a mother fully ripened into womanhood ; the last child of each, 
and the only child of the twain. This Simon-son, of the Pittsfield 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 9 

town, has now no tomb-stone monument to mark where his body lies, 
and no epitaph inscribed to record his religious belief, or pious 
character ; but only the memory-marks made, during his life, on 
those around him which have not faded. His parents, and brothers, 
and sisters, all accorded to him the qualification of good and 
smart ; but his early life had not the advantage of schools, and 
books, and sermons, and lectures, as the youth of our time have. 
Hard work by day-light, and rude plays by fire-light, occupied his 
youth, and the former did not cease when manhood came. Those 
still living who knew him say he was physically and mentally more 
than a common man, and morally not less, but religiously at zero. 
Many of his trite sayings, and some of his doings, still linger 
around the memories of those who knew him half a century ago. 

Such were the father and the paternal lineage of the Lone One, 
which, with one more brief notice in its proper place, must be left 
to the fast-fading shadows of memory ; for lineal descents are 
difficult to trace, and not very reliable when written. When forty 
years had worn away upon the records, these were nearly all the 
links the Lone One could find in the chain to connect him, through 
his sire, with the Puritan Fathers. The great fortune said to be 
waiting some heir in name and line had never arrested his atten- 
tion, for he was not registered in the records of lineal descent, but 
dwelt alone, and away from all kindred of name and descent from 
Aquila. It is doubtful whether, if he had died before this record 
was published, or before the days of modern spiritualism, he could 
have received a Christian burial, with head to the west, to meet at 
the resurrection of the bodies, the Saviour, who is to come from 
the east, when the trump of the angel shall call up the dead and 
decayed forms from the earth. But he has already outlived most 
of the follies, superstitions, and prejudices, of the Christians, and 
expects at death to find a home with the spirits, if not with the 
Christians, of the other world, and not so cold and unwelcome 
a reception as he found in this world. 



10 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

Section II. 

THE MOTHER AND CHILD. 

" Silently, strangely, the darkness 
Has fallen upon thy way, 
And the hands of no earthly morning 
For thee shall open the day. 

" And yet in a world of sunshine 

Thou seemest to dwell the while ; 
For the light of thy soul looks on us 
In the light of thy beautiful smile. 

" And much for that one affliction 
Shall this recompense atone — 
On the path of thine earthly journey 
Thou shalt not walk alone. 

" For when human love shall leave thee, 
Thy wanderings almost done, 
Then the hands of invisible angels 
Shall softly lead thee on. 

" And their arms shall be round about thee, 
Till thy feet through that gate have trod 
Standing dark at the end of the pathway 
Which leads from the world to God. 

" And then what an over-payment 
For the night of thy mortal ills, 
Shall come with the light of that morning 
That breaks o'er eternity's hills ! " 

On the fifth day of the first month of the eighteen hundred 
and thirteen, at the opening of the morning light upon the snow-clad 
hills and vales of New England, a poor, lonely, and sorry mother, 
with a newly-born and unwelcome babe, might have been seen in 
an old, shattered, and oft-deserted house, through which the winter 
winds and New England snow-storms played almost unobstructed ; 
a house long since gone to " dust and ashes," leaving only the 
hole in the ground to mark the spot where its frame once protect- 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 11 

ed, as well as society then did, the entrance of the Lone One on 
his earthly pilgrimage. Few marks of a modern New England 
home were to be seen there, except the bright eye of the sorry 
mother, and the quiet face of the babe, sleeping in innocence and 
ignorance both of its " totally depraved nature " and totally de- 
prived condition (especially of the comforts of life). The moth- 
er's eye grew dim and weak as it dropped its tears fresh-wrung 
from the heart, while she pondered on the fate of herself and 
child. What would become of them she knew not. Her hands, 
so used to toil for her support, were now confined to a new task, 
to which maternal love alone called her, and which returned a 
reward only in the satisfaction to her heart, but which would 
neither feed nor clothe herself and babe. A few — only a few — 
persons were willing to be known as the friends of this poor mother 
and babe ; but probably as many as were willing to be seen and 
known to be friends of the mother and child in a stable in Beth- 
lehem, once on a time. The few did call to see the mother and 
child, but they were mostly from that class of persons whose 
entire wealth is in charity, sympathy, and love, and who, however 
much disposed, were unable to relieve the wants of the sufferers. 
Death would indeed have been a welcome visitor then and there, 
if willing to take both to his home ; and far more welcome to the 
child, could he have seen the path of life before him. Thus dark 
and gloomy, and sad, hopeless, and loveless, uncalled for, a curse, 
not a blessing, was the earthly dawning of the Lone One's life. 
Well might that saddened mother say, with a sweet sister of song, 
on a bank of the Ohio, # 

" For me, in all life's desert sand, 

No well is made, no tent is spread ; 
No father's nor a brother's hand 
Is laid with blessing on my head. 

ct The radiance of my mortal star 

Is crossed with signs of woe to me, 
And all my thoughts and wishes are 
Sad wanderers toward eternity. 

* Alice Cary. 



12 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

" Stricken, riven, helplessly apart 

From all that blessed the path I trod, 
0, tempt me, tempt me not, my heart, 
To arraign the goodness of my God ! 

se For suffering hath been made sublime, 
And souls that lived and died alone 
Have left an echo for all time. 

As they went wailing to the throne. 

" There have been moments when I dared 
Believe life's mystery a breath, 
And deem Faith's beauteous bosom bared 
To the betraying arms of Death. 

66 For the immortal life but mocks 
The soul that feels its ruin dire 7 
And like a tortured demon rocks 
Upon the cradling waves of fire. 

*' To mine is pressed no loving lip, 

Around me twines no helping arm; 
And, like a frail dismasted ship, 
I blindly drift before the storm." 

This was the mother and child. Nobody owned the mother, 
for no priest had bade her obey and serve any man ; and hence 
no one man was bound to feed and clothe her. She owned herself 
and child ; and we never heard that she attributed its origin to a 
spirit, or to spirits, or spiritual influence of any kind, although she 
was a Christian woman. Whether she repented the hasty and 
imprudent bestowal of her love on that Simon-son of Nathaniel, 
from an overflowing heart, we cannot say ; but that she deeply 
deplored her sad fate is but too well known, however much she 
may now rejoice over its results. Few had pity for her. Some 
had scorn ; more had contempt ; but the angels smiled on her ; 
and when the heart of man cast her out, the heart of God took 
her in. But Simon, 0, Simon ! where art thou ? What screen 
can hide thee from her suffering ? 

When the nation's second war with England sent its notes echo- 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 13 

ing among the granite hills of New Hampshire, it called to the 
field and the ocean many brave hearts from among her hardy sons, 
Among them was Simon, the son of Nathaniel, who speedily re- 
leased himself from home and relatives, and sought associates in 
the camp, with the frontier army, on the Canada side of New 
England, His restless soul and troubled mind sought and found 
food and interest in the army for a brief period, until the terrible 
battle of Plattsburgh, after which the army record contained, 
among the names of the wounded and died, this same Simon, 
thus shortening the journey of life, and abruptly terminating the 
path to fame and glory, by a precipice and a plunge in oblivion's 
stream. Here ends all the Lone One could glean in 1855 of a 
father's history. In his ripened years, he was never much inclined 
to search among the tombs for relics, while living subjects of 
more interest were ever around him. At this infancy period of 
life, which we have now introduced, dark clouds with heavy storms 
hung lowering over his horizon ; and this burst and crash in a 
father's death was distant and faint, compared with many others 
that follow ; but fate would have its fixed course. In riper years, 
he often wondered why God (if there were a God) had sent him 
here without consulting his choice to come and be thus born, and 
also whether he could be accountable for involuntary life and 
actions resulting therefrom ; but none could answer or tell why 
God had done thus, by special or by general laws. Some power 
had certainly, without consulting the will of either, sent the child 
into earthly consciousness and the father out. The eager, ardent, 
restless spirit of the father (but not a spirit of wrangling) had 
been transmitted to the child, to mark him, in the babe, the boy, 
and the man, through life. Here our history leaves the father for 
the more minute detail of life and character by the numerous 
relatives, while we follow the Life-Line of the mother and boy. 
The babe would not die, although many wished it would, to relieve 
the mother from a burthen, and them from deeds of charity they 
felt so unable to perform. It lived and grew, and the mother 
2 



14 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

loved it, perhaps the more, for the hard fate which had befallen 
her. She sometimes thought, perhaps, 

" Heaven her nuptials did record, 
Though man did deem her love abhorred ; " 

and that her babe might yet live to bless and love her and others, 
and be useful in life, if she could only raise him to manhood. 
But joyless poverty in a hard country! — 0, who can describe its 
trials ! — its withering blasts, its pinching wants, its trampled 
and despised condition? Then add to it the disgrace of being a 
mother without the sacred mantle of legal marriage, and you can 
scarcely imagine the depths of a mother's woe forty years ago. 
Marriage might, indeed, have screened the mother from public 
scorn ; but how much guilt, and of what nature, attached to the 
child, society did never define. But it long despised him. When 
the rude cold winds reached their icy fingers for the heart-strings 
of her babe, and the rattling boards, nor tattered garments, could 
save him* then the mother folded him to her bosom, and fed and 
warmed from her scantily-supplied body, and bade the cold and 
hunger take her with her babe, or leave both together. She was 
a mother worthy a better fate, who might have filled, with honor 
and love, a stately mansion, had fortune favored her with one, 
instead of a hovel. It was, indeed, a hard task to supply by her 
labor the wants of both, for few would hire her with her boy. 
Susan did not name her boy for either family, nor borrow a name 
from either record of ancestors, but selected a name left on the 
scroll of fame by one who fell at the battle of Bunker's Hill, 
where the tall monument marks the spot of conflict and death ; 
and that name he is still known by, as much as by the sire-name. 
But a name of one beloved by thousands did not bring even friends 
to the Lone One, for now the 

" years pressed hard upon him, 

And his living friends were few ; 
And from out the sombre future 
Troubles drifted into view. ' ' 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 15 

Never yet did a child start on the pathway to fame, even in 
New England, with harder prospects, and through a darker and 
colder social atmosphere, than this unblessed babe ; and yet his 
eyes sparkled with gladness, and his heart leaped with joy, at 
each kind look, loving smile, or gentle word, of mother or friend. 
He had not yet learned that the world around him was full 
of scorn, contempt, neglect, and slander, for his sensitive soul to 
meet and overcome with its own love and devotion, which alone 
could overcome such obstacles to happiness. The meagre pittance 
which Susan could obtain for unwearying industry enabled her to 
feed and clothe herself and babe. It was no doubt a blessing to 
her to have the screen over coming events sufficient to obscure all 
vision of the terrible fate that awaited her and her boy ; else she 
would have earnestly prayed (for she did pray) that the cup might 
pass undrained by each or either. How oft, in riper years, have 
the eye and smile of the Lone One rested on a mother and child 
in a home of poverty, while the mind has turned back to his own 
mother and his childhood, and wondered if here, as there, love 
alone constituted the wealth of mother and child ! Tears and 
sympathy never have, and never can, abandon the heart once 
schooled in the experience of the Lone One ; nor can it ever fail 
to appreciate, reciprocate, and feel, the genial love of kindred 
souls. 

Four times our latitude felt the freezing winds and drifting 
snows of a winter solstice ; cold without, and cold within ; cold 
the forms, and colder the hearts, around the tender germ in earthly 
mould, born, out of time and out of place, of a mother, but not 
of a wife. The father had gone to Paradise, with Jesus and the 
thief; but the child was not taught to speak of his father, even 
the Father in heaven ; and although he saw other children with 
fathers to accept and instruct them, yet he knew not that he had 
a father, living or dead, till many years after the transition of 
Simon. The mother enjoyed tolerable health ; the heart only 
was diseased ; and whose heart would not be, in such a world, 
and under such trials, — a widow in fact, but not in law ? The 



16 • LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

messenger from the " Kingdom of Ponemah " had already started 
after her ; and the car of death was moving toward earth, to 
bear her to the " Islands of the Blessed ; " but she knew it not ; 
for still the earthly form swayed to the will obedient, still " the 
magic car moved on." Avon's bard has truly said, " Misfortunes 
never come single ; " and the Song of Hiawatha truly sings, in 
lines of Longfellow measure, 

" So disasters come not singly ; 
But, as if they watched and waited, 
Scanning one another's motions, 
When the first descends, the others 
Follow, follow, gathering fiockwise 
Hound their victim, sick and wounded. 
First a shadow, then a sorrow, 
Till the air is dark with anguish." 

But there is no hardest fate, no deepest woe in the trial-lives 
of wandering souls. Superlatives are meaningless. Compara- 
tives alone are appropriate. Every hard trial has a harder, every 
sad time a sadder, and every dark day a darker ; so of the bright, 
the beautiful, the good, and the happy, with a superlative only in 
the Perfect, the Infinite, the Omniscient. The child, or boy (for 
at this age he was both or either), was deposited with a Quaker 
family on the mountain, while the mother went to watch by the 
bedside of a relative, where the camp-fires of life were slowly 
expiring, little suspecting the angel of death was reaching for her 
to go first to the " Land of the Hereafter," and welcome there the 
dying one, and leave here her lonely babe to buffet the storms 
alone. She retired from the sick bed late one night, and lay her 
wearied body on its couch for repose, and quietly arose into the 
regions of eternal dream ; for, ere she awoke she died, — died 
without a struggle, apparently without the motion of a muscle, 
for the quiet face wore still its genial smile. In the morning 
they found the pale, cold form at rest ; but the spirit had been 
called, and obeyed the summons, — taken passage with the mes- 
senger to the sphere where the angels bid her welcome to their 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 17 

home. But she could not stay quietly there, for her boy was 
lingering and struggling in the wrangling world below ; and she 
asked and obtained permission to return, and guard him for a few 
years, to aid his feeble soul in its trial-hours and combats with 
a world of scorn and contempt. The Infidel laughed at the idea 
of her being a spirit, and the Christian ridiculed the idea of a 
spirit coming to earthly friends ; but both were ignorant and in 
error; for she was a spirit, and did come back from her happy 
home, to fill a mission to earth and to the lonely child. The phy- 
sician said she died by a nightmare. She says she died by a dis- 
ease of the heart. No matter ; she was dead to the world of 
touch and sight, to the outer sense and earthly form, and only 
alive to herself and the spiritual senses of others ; and the Lone 
One now inherited his name and organization, and nothing more. 
No wonder the neighbors said they sometimes saw her form, pale 
and shadowy, sitting on the bier which stood long over her grave, 
in the orchard where they laid her body to rest near its kindred ! 
No wonder the timid and superstitious said they heard her voice 
moaning in the breeze, as it whistled through the orchard, answer- 
ing to the wind, which " sat in the pines, and gave groan for 
groan ! " No wonder the whip-poor-will flew directly from the 
house to the grave, and from the grave to the house, and sang 
mournfully his sad song at each end of his short journey ! No 
wonder all who knew her asked each of each, " What will become 
of her boy ? " Few, very few, in that day, knew that our parents 
dead were living still, our spirit-guides. Her blessing came in the 
lines of the angel, F. S. Osgood : 

LABOR. 

Pause not to dream of the future before us ; 
Pause not to weep the wild cares that come o'er us ; 
Hark, how Creation's deep, musical chorus, 

Unintermitting, goes up into heaven ! 
Never the ocean-wave falters in flowing ; 
Never the little seed stops in its growing ; 
More and more richly the rose-heart keeps glowing, 

'Till from its nourishing stem it is riven. 
2* 



18 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

" Labor is worship ! " the robin is singing ; 
" Labor is worship ! " the wild bee is ringing ; 
Listen ! that eloquent whisper upspringing 

Speaks to thy soul from out Nature's great heart ! 
From the dark cloud flows the life-giving shower ; 
From the rough sod blows the soft-breathing flower ; 
From the small insect, the rich coral bower ; 

Only man, in the plan, shrinks from his part. 

Labor is life ! 5 T is the still water faileth; 

Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth ; 

Keep the watch wound, for the dark rust assaileth ; 

Flowers droop and die in the stillness of noon. 
Labor is glory ! — the flying cloud lightens ; 
Only the waving wing changes and brightens ; 
Idle hearts only the dark future frightens ; 

Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in tune ! 

Labor is rest from the sorrows that greet us, — 
Rest from all petty vexations that meet us, — 
Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us, — 

Rest from world-sirens that lure us to ill. 
Work, and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow ; 
Work — thou shalt ride over Care's coming billow ; 
Lie not down wearied 'neath Woe's weeping willow I 

Work with a stout heart and resolute will ! 

Droop not, though shame, sin, and anguish, are round thee ; 
Bravely fling off the cold chain that hath bound thee ! 
Look to yon pure heaven smiling beyond thee ! 

Rest not content in thy darkness, a clod ! 
Work for some good, be it ever so slowly ; 
Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly ; 
Labor ! All labor is noble and holy ! 

Let thy great deeds be thy prayer to thy God ! 

Section III. 

SUFFERING. 

The first half of the first decade in earth-life was now by the 
Lone One counted in years. Both parents (if he had two) were 
gone up out of their bodies, and he was left alone in his, — fath- 
erless, motherless, penniless, friendless, worthless, useless, and 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 19 

deathless. The last, and indeed, only, warm heart that beat for 
him was cold and still. The last and only face that smiled for 
him could smile no more. No hand to sustain, no arm to sup- 
port, no voice in kindness to direct, could he expect more, for 
now he was the world's child. Its cold selfish heart beat only for 
gold and glory, of which the child had none. The tears often 
stole down the cheek as the heart uttered its grief, while in child- 
like innocence he wildly asked, "Where is my mother?" — " Your 
mother is dead," came, coldly, stupidly, back the answer. — " What 
have they done with her?" — " Put her in the ground." — " Cruel, 
wicked men ! " exclaimed the boy. — " 0, no ; God took her 
away." — " Did God kill my mother ? " wildly asked the child. — 
11 Only took her away." — " 0, cruel, cruel God ! bring me back 
my mother ; for the world has no friend for me when she is gone ! " 
But they laughed at the child, whose innocent and ignorant heart 
condemned God for taking away his mother, whom he needed so 
much and God so little ; for now he felt himself fully to be the 
" poor outcast of creation," " no more to hear a kindly word, or 
grasp a kindly hand." 

In obedience to the statute of New Hampshire, each town at 
its annual meeting selects three men who are overseers of the 
poor, and whose duty it is to provide homes for those who have 
none, and no means of support. Of course the world's child 
became their ward at the death of his mother. In the town was 
a citizen farmer, whose name we will call David, not because he 
slew Goliah, or Uriah, but because he was known by that name 
at the time. He was a trader in cattle, and sheep, and swine ; 
not well organized for a happy life, and badly educated in social 
and spiritual affairs. This citizen applied to the authorities for 
the boy, whom he had attempted in vain to obtain from the 
mother, for he saw in him a machine capable of doing much hard 
work, and releasing his own children from many tasks. He readily 
obtained the boy, and the bond was signed which sold the world's 
child into bondage for sixteen long years to one of the most cruel 
and cold-hearted masters. The bond required schooling each 



20 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

winter ; and at the expiration of the time, when twenty-one years 
of life should render the boy a man capable of selling himself, two 
suits of clothes, and a hundred dollars in money, were to be his 
compensation for services. He was transferred from the mountain 
to the home of David, but never to the affections. Even the children 
were taught to manifest superiority over him, — he was with, but 
not of them. Not one spark of sympathy or love could be afforded 
him, for he was the child of nobody in this world. Many a time 
a sore back, or a bruised body, evinced the physical superiority and 
heartless cruelty of David ; often for trifling offences unavoidable 
to the boy ; the marks of frost and exposure on the extremities of 
his body remained for years, and the effects of hard labor, sadly 
unproportioned to his strength, remained still at the end of the 
fourth decade. True, the old jockey would sometimes come to 
visit his son David, and pat the boy on the head, and say " my 
son," — words which he never heard from other lips addressed to 
him, and at which his heart would leap with joy ; and he thought, 
if David would only say those words, how he would try to be 
good. The effects of this severe treatment can only be entirely 
removed when he changes his home for that of his mother, or other 
spirit-friends. The summers came, and the winters came, and toil, 
toil, toil, was his portion. Not school, nor play. True, an old 
spelling-book said, " All work and no play makes Jack a dull 
boy." If so, he must have been a " dull boy." A poet says 
" work is worship." If so, the Lone One was indeed a " devout 
child;" and yet the Christian creeds would have consigned him to 
hell, as the fashionable circles of society already had done for this 
life. Heavily, and slowly, the years rolled away, bringing to his 
childhood only misery and grief. There was no " under-ground 
railroad " to take him to freedom ; and no freedom for him to be 
taken into, except in the far-distant, and to him mystic, number, 
twenty-one. Why that should be the age for freedom, he knew 
not ; but so it was written, and he was the victim. Why that three- 
seven number should be a key to unlock manhood in a boy was, 
and still is, a mystery to the Lone One. Gladly would he have 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 21 

aped from this bondage to his mother, in " silent sleep," or 
" spirit-land," or heaven, or hell, or anywhere where she could 
meet him, and once more embrace him, and call him her child. 
But large caution, and a naturally timid heart, prevented him 
from self-destruction, even years after the point of time registered 
here. Thus rolled away the last half of the first decade, and 
brought the age of ten, to which he longingly looked as a time 
when he should be almost a man ; but, alas, how disappointed was 
the boy ! — he was still a stinted lad. Sorrow, too deep, too keen, 
to be impressed here, bore down the childish glee and youthful 
impulses of his heart. Reasoning superficially, one would say 
this treatment followed so long in this period of life would crush 
out every spark of love and sympathy from his tender and child- 
ish heart, and that he would be hardened for crime, and 
driven in madness to wage war on the race ; but it was not so. 
Deeply seated in his very soul was an ardent yearning for love 
and sympathy, that no cruelty could extinguish ; it was ready at 
the first warm ray of love to spring into life and growth. He 
had felt, although he had not read, that " TThoni the heart of 
man casts out, straightway the heart of God takes in." 

Five long years with a mother's love and nothing else, and five 
longer ones without even that, — for a God, said to be a " God of 
love," had taken her away, and left the boy without any consola- 
tion, — save in the future, and in freedom at twenty-one ; when 
the new year and fine days brought a birth-day dream, from the 
poet. 

u He dreamed that in another sphere 
He had the cycles run ; 
Ten million million centuries, 
Yet life had but begun. 

*' Earth on her way was moving still, 
The moon wore still her light, 
The planets wheeled their stated round, 
The unfading sun was bright. 



22 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

" And many a universe lie saw, 
Ranged in the boundless space, 
Around the Almighty's central throne, 
That saw their tireless race. 

" But yet he sought this little earth, 
The scene of life's first years, 
Where first he knew of joy or grief, 
Of loves, and hopes, and fears. 

" Earth had become a paradise ; 
No more was strife or wrong, 
Or poverty or fell disease, 
That it had known so long. 

" No more o'er virtue vice arose, 
Or worst above the best ; 
All shared the gifts of God alike, 
And all alike were blessed." 

Thus closed the first ten years of life in sorrowful bondage, 
condemned, despised, scorned, abused, only because he had entered 
the world, (not voluntarily) ; not because he had abused it or 
sinned, but because God had (as the Christian said) sent him 
here with a nature totally depraved, and forced him through a 
totally depraved channel, in the estimation of society, without his 
consent. Whether he was here to expiate the sins of a former 
life, or as a missionary, or only for development and growth, 
could not at this period of existence be determined. 

" There is no wind but soweth seeds 
Of a more true and open life, 
Which burst, unlooked-for, in high-souled deeds, 
With wayside beauty rife. ' ' 



CHAPTEK II. 
SECOND DECADE OF THE WORLD'S CHILD. 

The Bagged Orphan. — The Fugitive Slave not delivered up. — The Change of 
Homes. — The Commencement of Education.— Good and Bad mixed. — Wind- 
ing into Manhood. 

Section I. 

FUGITIVE. 

On the cold, stormy morning of January 5, 1823, the boy 
awoke from his " sweet dream of peace," and found himself still 
a boy in condition and stature, in the worst form of limited 
slavery, such as New England retained after she had freed her 
colored slaves. Within her limits slavery had not then ceased, 
although she had received the applause of some philanthropists, 
and even many years after, barbarism could be found ; for an old 
man was imprisoned sixty days, in Boston, for publishing in his 
own paper the fact that he did not believe in their orthodox God. 
Selling orphans and imprisoning infidels were sufficient works of 
cruelty to moderate her zeal on the subject of oppression, — or 
ought to have been, at least, until her own hands were clean. 
True, it did not palliate the crimes of others ; but trying to get the 
mote from our brother's eye, with a beam in our own, was appropri- 
ately condemned by One long ago. The second decade opened with 
a renewal of the gloomy pilgrimage of his earthly journey, ragged 
and dirty, despised and dejected. The great pendulum of time 
made its monthly crossings, and at each swing groaned " no hope," 
— no hope in this life, nor of heaven beyond. He had now begun to 
sin, although he could not read ; and was on the broad road to hell 
for sinning against God, of whom he only knew what the swearers 



24 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

and boys told him ; for he had neither time or clothes that would 
allow of his going to hear what the preacher could tell about 
God and the devil ; and, if he had, in his unsophisticated nature, 
it is doubtful which he would have chosen for a master ; for he 
still supposed God killed his mother. New England had her 
churches, her schools, her social and family circles, her high life 
and her low life. The latter alone could he endure (not enjoy) ; 
the songs of joy and mirth went booming up from the groups of 
boys and girls at their merry plays, but the Lone One had no 
share in them. 

" Without, in tatters, the world's poor child 
Sobbeth alone his grief, his pain ; 
No one heareth him, no one heedeth him. 
But winter, his friend, with his cold, tight hand, 
Grasps his form, whispering huskily, 
What dost thou in a Christian land? " 

David had already begun to make encroachments on the title- 
deeds of his neighbors, adding at least one farm to his own, and 
was reaching after others, when, for reasons not to be mentioned 
here, his affairs became neglected, his business left at loose ends, 
and he began to go down-hill, as the neighbors said. Then every 
one was ready to give him a push or kick, which only made him more 
cross and cruel to those under his control. Domestic troubles, too, 
and unkind treatment of his wife, made her not less severe and cruel 
to the world's child. She, however, was never as severe as David 
— being by nature a woman, and a mother, in marriage. She seldom 
used the rod, but only used her tongue for a weapon ; which, 
although severe to the sensitive heart of the boy, did not lacerate 
the body and soul both, as the treatment of David did. Prosperity 
and adversity are neighbors, and their dominions border on each 
other. The sun crosses the line at the vernal equinox, and lets 
winter into summer through spring, and again at the autumnal 
equinox lets summer glide through the autumn into winter. So 
our lives often are changed by crossing a line, and we glide into 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 25 

prosperity or adversity, after nearing each day or week the mar- 
gin ; then turn again, as David has, since he crossed over Jor- 
dan, and went to the world, but not to the home, of the mother 
of the orphaned boy. David usually kept his own counsel, and 
consulted himself only, on business matters. For reasons best 
known to himself, he rented the rocky farm and old homestead, 
and moved to a small manufacturing village on the Lamprey 
Elver, to make money by keeping boarders. In this new home the 
almost constant presence of boarders or other persons rendered it 
more difficult for David to treat the boy as badly as he had done 
on the farm ; for he had some shame, as most persons have, and did 
not like to have people see him abuse the little urchin. New, 
and more, acquaintances were now formed by the Lone One, and 
all, especially the boys, had much sympathy for him ; for they 
knew he was not treated well and could not read, for the school- 
ing contract was not fulfilled to the letter, but another kind of 
schooling substituted for that designated in the bond. He heard 
stories of runaway boys, and boys going to sea, &c, and his mind 
dwelt much, both day and night, on the subject, until he was fully 
resolved to try his luck for freedom, by running away. But 
where to go, and how to introduce himself, penniless, friend- 
less, ragged, and unlettered, was still a source of great per- 
plexity, and one on which he could form no plan, and did not. 
He ventured to consult some of his more intimate boy-compan- 
ions, and they advised hira to go to the ocean and get on a vessel, 
and " go to sea," as the safest mode of escape. But how to get 
there without a penny ; for, although he was fourteen years old, 
he had never possessed money in his life, except once a few 
cents to spend at a training, and scarcely knew the value of com- 
mon coins, except what the boys had taught him for amusement, 
or from charity ; for they had both for him. Seven years more 
of such servitude was too much fur endurance, and almost any 
change preferable ; and he resolved to embrace the first favorable 
opportunity, and flee from bondage and the " wrath to come." 
About the middle of the first decade, the transition of the 



26 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

mother and the gale into bondage made a great change in the 
condition of the Lone One, and now approached the middle of the 
second decade, with another important event in embryo. The 
fourteenth birth-day had passed over in the winter, and spring 
had come round with a May-day and flowers, and yet no oppor- 
tunity for escape offered itself to the captive, until near the 
middle of May, when David left home for the old homestead on 
one Saturday, intending to return on Monday. The day set apart 
for the preachers to labor and the lay members to cease work had 
dawned beautifully on that spot of earth where the Lone One 
slept and mused, feeling the sentiment of Gertrude Ladd, as 
expressed in these beautiful lines : 

* e Alone, I murmur, as I gaze upon the darkened past., 
Alone I 've wandered on my weary way. 

While dangers thick and fast 
Have gathered round me day by day, 
My happiness to blast. 

6C Alone, alone I sigh, as in the future drear 
I turn my weary, wandering eye, 
And hope some friendly voice to hear, 
Some cheering beacon to descry, 
My soul to cheer. 

" Alone no more I '11 murmur, for I see 

Ear in the future dark a glimmering light, 

Which seems to beckon me 
Unto a region beautiful and bright, 
Where day reigns ever, clouded ne'er by night — 

Alone no more I '11 be." 

When the noon had passed, and the still pleasant day was 
declining, three boys parted company two or three miles from 
their homes: two returning, and one going on from home — if, 
indeed, it was a home he left. They have never met again, and 
the one has never returned ; for he " ran away," so they said. 
From a poor old friendless man, once acquainted with the mother 
of the Lone One, who labored sometimes for David, the boy had 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 27 

lieard of a distant connection of his mother, who lived in poverty 
about seven miles from the boarding-house ; and he had learned 
the direction to her house, or shanty. When the sun sank in the 
west, and tinged with its beautiful rays the skirt of clouds on the 
horizon's verge, the world's child was nearing the poverty home 
of the widow and the old-maid daughter, which made up the fam- 
ily of these relatives. He had three small crackers in his pocket, 
and nothing more of any kind ; barefoot, old chip hat on his head, 
cotton shirt (clean, for it was Sabbath), tow-cloth pants, and 
short coat, made up his dress, and his all. A body and a sensitive 
heart were there ; for, although ten long years of cruelty and pain 
had worn upon the youthful frame, yet the poet's words were true, 
who saith, 

(i You may break, you may ruin, the vase, if you will, 
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still. ' ' 

He reached and entered the poverty home, so like the one where 
he once lived with a mother, with one treasure, — only one — the 
currency of heaven. Love, only love was to be found, of all the 
comforts of life ; but that is a treasure. They met him not with 
scorn, for 

" Scorn is for devils ; soft compassion lies 
In angel hearts, and beams from angel eyes;" 

and by this rule two angels met him here, and shed around his 
lonely heart the balmy influence of love once more, — but only a 
fitful gleam, to brighten for a moment the pathway of life, then let 
it sink again to loneliness and gloom ; but it was all they could 
do. They shared with him the homely meal at night and morn, and 
divided for him the scanty bed-clothes, and heard, with tears of 
sorrow and pity, the story of his woes ; but could not offer protec- 
tion or relief; for, in that hard, cold place, it was barely possible 
for them to sustain life in themselves by the strictest economy and 
industry. When the morning was come it was necessary for them 
to part, for the first and last time ; and, however painful, it was 



28 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

their duty to give the best advice they could, for this, and the 
sympathy of loving hearts, was all they had to spare. They did 
not know his mother was with him. He did not know it ; for his, 
and their, spiritual senses were not opened sufficiently to recognize 
the presence of spirits. But she was with him, and guiding his 
course by an unseen influence. They advised him to return, and 
excuse himself as well as he could for his visit to them, and await 
a better opportunity to escape ; for they could conceive of no 
means of escape, and no prospect of assistance or of a home for 
him elsewhere. A hearty good-by and God bless you parted 
the three, and he started in tjie direction of his master's residence, 
making slow steps, and with a sad heart. Soon as he was out 
of sight of the house, an impression, strong and irresistible, 
induced him to get over the fence and wander away from the 
road, and turn his steps again to the eastward, and jfrom the home 
of David ; and some unseen power, for many years of unknown 
origin to him, kept him out of sight from the road, until the man in 
pursuit of him on horseback from David's home had passed on to 
the bridge at Durham, and returned, unable to see or hear of such 
a boy as he was seeking. After this man in pursuit of the 
fugitive had returned (although unknown to the boy, for he did not 
expect to be pursued until David returned), he again, near noon, 
entered the road near a bridge and ship-yard in Durham, and 
crossed the bridge. The men stopped their work and looked at 
the boy, the same one inquired after a short time before, by 
the man on horseback, and described as a runaway ; but they 
did not arrest nor molest him, and he passed on, turning uncon- 
sciously to the left, and taking the road which led to his native 
town. Hastening on, but he knew not where ; a cracker served for 
a dinner ; for he did not dare to enter a house and ask for food, 
lest he should be questioned and detected as a fugitive, not from 
justice, but from servitude. When the sun was again in the west, 
and the curtain of day lowering down to the western horizon, and 
his limbs were already weary, and his stomach stayed by one 
small cracker, he recognized a tavern in Northwood, a town ad- 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 29 

joining his native Pittsfield, and thus for the first time discov- 
ered that he was on the road leading to his old home. Scarcely 
had he passed the place, when a new difficulty arose in his mind. 
David was to return this day from his old place, and might he not 
meet him, and with another terrible beating be returned to servi- 
tude, and watched so as to prevent another escape ? In the very 
midst of these fears a team appeared on a hill before him, and he 
recognized the horses and driver. It was David, truly. Not a 
moment was there to spare. No house, or barn, or grove, was near 
enough to screen him ; but David did not know of his escape, and 
of course was not on the lookout, and, beside, was busy in con- 
versation with a passenger. Over the stone wall, and curled down 
behind it, was the runaway boy as the master passed unsuspect- 
ingly by, in the heat and glow of earnest conversation, and the 
trembling boy now returned to the road and his journey. That 
great danger had passed, and become another evidence that 

" We see but half the causes of our deeds, 
Seeking them wholly in the outer life, 
And heedless of the encircling spirit-world, 
Which, though unseen, is felt, and sows in us 
All germs of pure and world-wide purposes." 

When the sun was gone down, and it was yet light, he was on 
old Catamount Mountain, from which he could see the spires of 
those buildings erected to save the souls in his own native town, 
and where, of course, he ought to have his soul saved, if he could 
not his body. But there was poor chance for either to be saved in 
him ; for he was the world's child, and the town was his guardian — 
not the church, for the church turned his mother out for becoming 
a mother, as Mary of old did, without their or the magistrate's per- 
mission ; but God soon after took her into heaven, as he did Mary. 
Down the long and winding road of the mountain-side to the vil- 
lage, as the daylight passed away circle by circle, he moved 
weary and sad, hungry and dejected, in a Christian land, with a 
spirit for a guide, unbeknown to him or others. The mother and 
3* 



30 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

child entered the village late in eve, when the lamps were 
gone out in the parlor, and the smoke-fires covered up ; when 
Somnus had spread his net over the village. Where to go, on 
whom to call, was the next great question. He had no friends in 
the village. About two miles to the eastward was the grave of 
his mother, and some remnants of her paternal home, and its poor 
but kind inmates ; but it was night, and a dark wood of pine and 
hemlock was by the way on each side of the road part of the 
distance, and the boy dare not go over the road in the night. A 
still greater obstacle was the grave-yard which lay by the road- 
side, skirted by a wood on one side, and church on another. By 
this he certainly could not pass in the night ; for he had heard 
marvellous stories of ghosts, and something of a Holy Ghost which 
dwelt in the ghostly church, and he dreaded and feared them all,, 
both the Holy and unholy. These obstacles were insurmountable ; 
therefore he retired to the tavern barn-yard to take lodgings with 
the cattle, for they did not have to pay money, and he had none 
to pay. Sometimes he crept on their backs, and sometimes he 
drove them up, and took the warm spot of ground till it was cold ; 
and thus he spent the long, cold May night in the tavern-yard 
with the cattle, sleeping on the ground till awakened by the cold 
several times. At length morning came, and the ghosts retired 
from their night-watch over the graves, and the imaginary bears 
to their forest dens nowhere, and the boy again started, his bare feet 
on the ground white with frost, (nothing new for him), and by exer- 
cise soon warmed his chilled body, rendered feeble with the exercise 
and hunger of twenty-four hours. He reached the old home of his 
grandmother, who was still alive, but just on the verge of the other 
life which comes next after this. He was soon warmed and fed, 
and the neighboring women called in to council with those of the 
household upon what should be done. A little incident occurred 
here which made a deep impression on the boy's mind. He had 
found in the road, the day before his arrival, a pair of long stock- 
ings, done up as is usual for packing in a valise, and had brought 
them with him to this home. He heard the women express a fear 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 31 

that he liad stolen tkem. To be suspected of stealing was too 
much for his sensitive soul, and ke went off and wept alone, sorry 
that he must live in such a suspicious world, or world of rogues 
on the constant lookout for rogues, and of honest people full of 
suspicion. 

The council of women decided to take the hoy to the selectmen 
of the town, and send the best pleader among them to make a plea 
for his release from the bondage, and to induce them to try and 
find him another home. The best pleader was a lady, — not a con- 
nection, but a sympathizing friend ; and she went with the boy to 
the trio who were in session next day after the arrival of the 
fugitive. They were aware of the cruel treatment by David, and 
that the boy had not been sent to school according to the agree- 
ment; and also that David had failed, and was not likely to be able 
to pay the one hundred dollars at the end of six more years. 
Hence the cause did not need the skill and pleading powers of 
Mrs. E,., for they at once resolved that the boy should not be sent 
back to bondage in that place, When this announcement was 
made one glad heart leaped with joy. One bound of joyous feel- 
ing, too strong to utter, filled his soul to overflowing ; and a burst 
of tears gave them the thanks his lips could not speak, and proved 
the sensitive soul was not all callous or frozen ; yet it could scarcely 
prove that Tupper was wrong in this sentiment, 

6i Scratch, the green rind of a sapling, or wantonly twist it in the soil, 
The scarred and crooked oak will tell of thee for centuries to come." 

Section II. 

EMANCIPATED. 

One of the three, whose Christian name was Nathaniel, readily 
offered the boy a home at his own house ; for he at once felt the 
warm and deep gratitude gushing from his soul at the prospect of 
release from the tyrant. The Lone One never saw David again; 
for when he came after the fugitive he soon learned that the 
authorities had agreed to protect the boy, and returned to reflect 



32 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

on his treatment. A few years after, he passed over the cold Jor- 
dan stream, and judged himself " according to the deeds done in the 
body ; " passed sentence, and went away to work out a happier 
condition, which he has long since attained. 

" Human life is as the Chian wine, 
Flavored into him who drinketh it." 
And 

66 In the perfect circle of creation, not an atom could be spared, 
From earth's magnetic zone, to the bindweed round a hawthorn." 

That night the boy slept at a new home, — a home where he was 
treated as one of the family, with a kindness he felt but could not 
respond to, save by feelings and tears which were almost constant, 
now the crushed heart collected and expressed its native and in- 
stinctive fragrance. It was no task to labor now, for he was fed, 
clothed, and treated kindly by all the family; but how utterly 
unfit he was for such company, having been for ten long years 
treated as a dog, never admitted into company, except to skulk 
and sneak as a dog in a corner, eating on soiled dishes the frag- 
ments left at meal-times by the family, or boarders, and only 
allowed to speak in answer to questions to the head of the family. 
How truly the family of Nathaniel proved the truth of the poet's 

words — 

" The very flowers that bend and meet 
In sweetening others grow more sweet I ' ' 

for they did truly sweeten the bitter life-draught of . sorrow 
which the Lone One was compelled to accept with life. God or 
nature did reward this family ; for, twenty years after the Lone 
One left the town, he returned, and found Nathaniel, ripened in 
years, going in peace, happy, to his spirit home ; the wife already 
gone over, and the children all grown up in health and plenty, 
educated and happy. But the Lone One was not needed at this 
home, which was only offered him temporarily ; and, after a few 
months, moved to the old homestead of Nathaniel's wife, where 
her two old-bachelor brothers carried on the large farm, and hired, 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 33 

instead of marrying, housekeepers. Here the orphaned boy found 
a happy home, and kind treatment from Samuel and John and their 
housekeepers. He was no more abused, and his soul continued 
to swell with gratitude and with love and kindness to other beings. 

" For love through love increaseth> and hate begetteth hate." 

Summer and autumn passed, — the first happy ones to the lone 
heart since the days of his mother, — but when winter came a new 
trouble arose. He must go to school ; a fine large schoolhouse 
was near, and a long school-term, with many scholars, and he a 
boy of fifteen, and could not even read. How could his sensitive 
soul bear the laugh and scorn of the boys and girls of his age who 
were advanced, in their studies? But when the school began he 
appeared and took his place with the least and youngest class in 
the school, to learn to read ; the butt for jokes, and object of rid- 
icule and scorn of the school, but not of the teacher, for his sym- 
pathy was called out, and he aided the ardent and sensitive 
spirit in its struggles. The progress was rapid, and did not stop 
until, at the fourth winter, he was the best and furthest-advanced 
scholar in the school. Then the jokes and ridicule turned to 
admiration. The whole power of the soul was called into action, 
and it soon made up for lost years by renewed energies. Two 
years the boy lived with this happy family of Universalists, and 
they were real and true Christians, if, indeed, Christians were the 
good and charitable people of earth ; for no cross word was ever 
spoken to the boy by them, and his heart began to grow into sym- 
pathy with the world, for he found, at length, that all were not 
like David. At the end of two years he entered into a contract 
with a family whose farm adjoined that of the bachelors, lying at 
the foot of the hill, where the large old two-stories house is still 
standing, with many other marks of the industry of one of the best 
families of the town. There he lived till the number of years 
required by law made him a man, with civil and political rights, like 
other men. Earned and received the one hundred dollars and two 
suits of clothes, such as were named in the bond of David. Re- 



34 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

ceived the schooling and the best of care for his health of body, 
and always kind treatment and a good home. He was ever one 
of the family, and treated as one, but was the only young person 
in the family, which consisted of Bracket and his wife, his father 
Moses and wife, and two maiden sisters of Bracket ; all of whom 
were gone over to the other home, when he returned, twenty years 
after he left them, and in the old homestead was a second wife of 
Bracket, a widow, with her two bright boys, overjoyed to see one 
of whom they had so often heard the family and neighbors speak. 
Bracket and his mother had, by the advice of some physician 
ignorant of human nature and the nature of tobacco, been advised 
to smoke, and were inveterate smokers ; and the Lone One, who 
wished to imitate and copy the acts of good men, here learned the 
filthy, contaminating, and expensive habit of smoking, and followed 
it for near fifteen years, until his mind reached a degree of develop- 
ment that could not longer tolerate the nuisance. Many marks of 
the four years' residence and labor on this farm by the orphan boy 
are yet visible, and many marks of books and facts obtained there 
are still bright in his memory ; for a younger brother of Bracket, 
then in college and at law, lent or gave to the Lone One many 
books which he needed and was not able to buy, and thus assisted 
him in his education. 

At this home terminated the second decade. Still lonely and 
desolate in soul was the world's child. But cruelty to him had 
ceased, and kindness, and care of his body and its wants, were now 
secured; yet life was desolate, dreary, and almost aimless, for 
what could he do to erase the stigma of his birth, and evade the 
" sleet of scorn," the scorching flame of contempt, the vulgar dis- 
gust, of those who were better born. No matter whether it was 
God or the Devil who was author of the causes that brought about 
the event ; the boy alone was now left to bear the stigma, for it 
could not be forgotten nor forgiven while one was living to bear 
it. How could he overcome it ? How could he become respect- 
able ? How obtain friends, wealth, fame ? 

Much he needed books and instruction on physiology, as all 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 35 

children do in the second decade of life ; but at that time works, 
on that subject, most required of all, were prohibited by a squeam- 
ishness in public opinion, and as much excluded as metaphysical 
works were by religious teachers. True, the boy did not have his 
mind filled with superstition and fanaticism. He was not taught 
to call Moses the meekest man nor Solomon the wisest that ever 
lived, nor David a man after Grod's own heart ; but most of the 
books which he found in the town library, or elsewhere, were satu- 
rated with the insipid, or poisonous, doctrines of theology, and even 
the school-books had been revised and corrected or originally writ- 
ten by theologians, and filled with absurdities mixed with the truths 
of science, and it was difficult for a youthful mind to sort out and 
reject all the sophistry of an educated clergy. Yet his mind was 
too much in accord with nature to admit many of these impositions 
on her beauty and harmony, and too much in love with nature to 
admit such absurd imputations on her character as modern theology 
taught. Thus he grew more and more in love with science and 
her conclusions, and came fully to the conclusion that the truth 
was to be found in the following lines : 

" 'T will be all tlie same in a hundred years ! — 
What a spell- word to conjure up smiles and tears ! 
O, how oft do I muse j 'mid the thoughtless and gay, 
On the marvellous truth that these words convey ! 
And can it be so ? — must the valiant and free 
Have their tenure of life on this frail decree ? 
Are the trophies they 've reared, and the glories they 've won, 
Only castles of frost-work confronting the sun ? 
And must all that 's as joyous and brilliant to view 
As a mid-summer dream be as perishing, too ? 
Then have pity, ye proud ones ! — be gentle, ye great ! 
O, remember how mercy beseemeth your state ; 
For the rust that consumeth the sword of the brave 
Is eating the chain of the manacled slave, 
And the conqueror's frowns and his victim's tears 
Will be* all the same in a hundred years ! 

** 'T will be all the same in a hundred years ! — 
What a spell-word to conjure up smiles and tears ! 



36 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

How dark are your fortunes, ye sons of the soil, 

Whose heirloom is sorrow, whose birthright is toil ! 

Yet envy not those who have glory and gold, 

By the sweat of the poor, and the blood of the bold ; 

For 'tis coming, howe'er they may fiaujat in their pride, 

The day when they '11 moulder to dust by your side. 

Death uniteth the children of toil and of sloth, 

And the democrat reptiles carouse upon both ; 

For Time, as he speeds on his -viewless wings, 

Disenables and withers all earthly things ; 

And the knight's white plume, and the shepherd's crook, 

And the minstrel's pipe, and the scholar's book, 

And the emperor's crown, and the Cossack's spears, 

Will be dust alike in a hundred years ! 

" 'Twill be all the same in a hundred years ! — 
0, most magical fountain of smiles and tears ! 
To think that our hopes, like the flowers of June, 
Which we love so much, should be lost so soon ! 
Then what meaneth the chase after phantom joys, 
Or the breaking of human hearts for toys, 
Or the veteran's pride in his crafty schemes, 
Or the passions of youth for its darling dreams, 
Or the aiming at ends that we never can span, 
Or the deadly aversion of man for man ? — 
What availeth it all — 0, ye sages, say ! — 
Or the miser's joy in his brilliant clay, 
Or the lover's zeal for his matchless prize — 
The enchanting maid with the starry eyes — 
Or the feverish conflict of hopes and fears, 
If 'tis all the same in a hundred years ? " 

But it was long years after that he felt the truth of the closing 
stanzas of the poem. 

" Ah ! 'tis not the same in a hundred years, 
How clear soever the case appears ; 
For know ye not, that beyond the grave, 
Far, far beyond, where the cedars wave 
On the Syrian mountains, or where the stars 
Come glittering forth in their golden cars, 
There bloometh a land of perennial bliss, 
Where we smile to think of the tears in this ? 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 37 

And the pilgrim reaching that radiant shore 
Has the thought of death in his heart no more, 
But layeth his staff and sandals down, 
For the victor's palm and the monarch's crown. 
And the mother meets, in that tranquil sphere, 
The delightful child she had wept for here ; 
And we quaff of the same immortal cup, 
While the orphan smiles, and the slave looks up. 
So be glad, my heart, and forget thy tears, 
For 'tis not the same in a hundred years ! " 

4 



CHAPTER III. 

THIRD DECADE OF THE LONE ONE. 

Boyhood changed to Manhood. — Education. — Scepticism for Religion. — 
Love and Separation. — Long Journey. — Sickness. — Marriage. —Poverty. 
— Struggles for Life in the West. 

Section I. 
manhood. 

The kind-hearted Bracket, who graduated and smoked the 
orphan into manhood, fulfilled every agreement, and even more in 
kindness ; and, some months before the expiration of the service- 
time, the school-months enabled the boy to enter the academy at 
Gilmanton Corners, to obtain such educational aid as could not be 
furnished him in the district-school where, five years before, he 
commenced to learn in the lowest class, the object of ridicule for 
the school. The hill-foot home was to be his home no. more. It 
was visited by him soon after, at the death and burial of the wife 
of Bracket, who had been kind to him, and ever attentive to his 
wants. Her suffering was great, and almost a double affliction 
to the family ; for she left them at a period when more fortunate 
circumstances might have doubled the joys of life to her and 
Bracket. It was the beginning of Death's encroachments on the 
family circle, which only ceased when it had taken all, and the 
father of Bracket last. The new wife and two boys were intro- 
duced before the messenger took Bracket. In the spring of 1855 
the Lone One halted an hour, to cast a hasty glance over the 
farm, on which many a stone was resting where his hand had 
placed it, and trees were growing where he had planted them. 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 89 

The lovely boys and lonely mother welcomed him as one of the 
family of the old homestead. Sadly and sorrowing, he turned 
away, and wished not to turn back the pages of his history nor 
theirs, but felt more' inclined to say, " ' Fly swiftly on, ye wheels 
of time,' and carry me over to their present home." The Life- 
line, which had now run through its boyhood, was about to enter 
manhood, and run in a broader and deeper channel. The sub- 
stantial traits of character were already formed for life, and ever 
after bore him above the grosser vices of civilization, — dissipa- 
tion, profanity, vulgarity, and licentiousness. Even in riper 
years, when in the fascinating circles of social and political life, 
where others around him were led astray, he was ever firm to the 
first principles of character, and by them was enabled to become 
a guide and counsellor for others, and often, in public and private, 
to lecture for temperance and morality, purity and reform. New 
emotions, new impulses, new desires, new attractions, had arisen 
in the mind and heart of the Lone One ; and he saw the world 
around him as he had never seen it before. Comparing his own 
sad fate with other young men, he wept bitter tears of sorrow for 
his existence, with powers and capacities for which he had no use, 
which could neither be used for his own or others' happiness. 
Then the wheel of fortune turned to him its historic page ; and 
the record called his attention to the fact that nearly every son 
of noble lineage, placed by wealth, family, and ancestry, high up 
the ladder of life, to begin a self-sustaining career above its pov- 
erty base, fell to the bottom, and, if such ever arose again, did 
it by individual effort, and through trials and struggles ; while 
most of those who were ever ascending, and nearest the summit, 
arose from the very foot of society, and by unwearying effort 
overcame obstacles which at times seemed insurmountable. Then 
the muses, ever his friends who could reach his sensitive heart 
with the spirit of song, let into his soul, in substance, the senti- 
ment of the beautiful poem of Mackay : 

" Were the lonely acorn never bound 
In the rude, cold grasp of the rotting ground ; 



40 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

Did the rigid frost never harden up 

The mould above its bursting cup ; 

Were it never soaked in the rain and hail, 

Or chilled by the breath of the wintry gale, — 

It would not sprout in the sunshine free, 

Or give the promise of a tree ; 

It would not spread to the summer air 

Its lengthening boughs and branches fair, 

To form a bower, where, in starry nights, 

Young love might dream unknown delights ; 

Or stand in the woods, among its peers, 

Fed by the dews of a thousand years. 

" Were never the dull, unseemly ore 
Dragged from the depths where it slept of yore ; 
Were it never cast into searching flame, 
To be purged of impurity and shame ; 
Were it never molten 'mid burning brands, 
Or bruised and beaten by stalwart hands, — 
It would never be known as a thing of worth ; 
It would never emerge to a noble birth ; 
It would never be formed into mystic rings, 
To fetter Love's erratic wings ; 
It would never shine amid priceless gems 
On the girth of imperial diadems, 
Nor become to the world a power and pride 
Cherished, adored, and deified. 

' So thou, man of a noble soul, 
Starting in view of a glorious goal, 
Wert thou never exposed to the blasts forlorn, 
The storms of sorrow, the sleet of scorn ; 
Wert thou never refined, in pitiless fire, 
From the dross of thy sloth and mean desire ; 
Wert thou never taught to feel and know 
That the truest love has its roots in woe, — 
Thou wouldst never unriddle the complex plan, 
Or reach half way to the perfect man ; 
Thou wouldst never attain the tranquil height 
Where wisdom purifies the sight, 
And God unfolds to the humblest gaze 
The bliss and beauty of his ways." 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 41 

The quiet and industrious farmers of New England, who count 
the annual round of seasons by seed-time and harvest, have a dia- 
lect peculiar to their section of the inhabited world, as every other 
people has. Mixed in it are many meaningless words, and many 
good ones badly accented, and often inappropriately applied ; and 
these, early acquired, are often retained by her citizens through 
life, and carried to other regions, where they sound badly to those 
not accustomed to them, but who use others equally or more 
absurd. Some of these were retained by the Lone One through 
his school days, and through years of residence in the West, and often 
called out expressions of ridicule from egotistic critics, who knew 
how to swear by rule, and eat tobacco by the pound, — expressions 
that touched keenly his sensitive feelings. " He murders the 
king's English," meaning really their own English, which was 
often more defective than his. Even these were, however, turned 
to good account, in enabling him to correct many erroneous modes 
of expression. Profane language he never used, for he did not 
go much to religious meetings to learn it ; nor did he believe it 
more proper for a preacher to take God's name in vain, or abuse 
the devil, than for others to do so. 

The body and brain had now attained their forms and propor- 
tions, and exhibited a body five feet nine inches long, round shoul- 
ders, and stout, muscular form, with nervous-bilious temperament; 
ardent and active, keen and very sensitive ; with a brain above 
average, large, but not very large ; sharp and active organs ; 
largest organs, firmness and caution, — next, causality and per- 
ceptives ; with benevolence large, social organs large, and de- 
structiveness least ; time and tune, small ; marvellousness small, 
and hope large ; eventuality small, and intuition very large ; 
veneration full, and conscientiousness even ; language large, 
ideality and sublimity full. These gave the general and tone 
of feeling, and leading traits of character ; and as he was not 
accountable for his organization, it is yet to be determined how 
far he could be accountable for his character, which resulted from 
it. The texture of brain and nerve were extremely fine, and 
4* 



42 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

gave tone and keenness to his feelings. His large caution, small 
self-esteem, and sensitive nerves, made him extremely timid in 
early life, and until a knowledge of phrenology and his own brain 
enabled him to overcome it. When he entered the academy, 
among all strangers, with book-knowledge mostly acquired alone, 
evenings and Sundays, this timidity was felt, and often extremely 
embarrassing, of which one instance may serve to illustrate : On 
committing his first piece for declamation, and standing before the 
school to speak it, not one word could he utter, — a full-grown 
man, before the students, laughed at by the whole school ! For 
such an ambitious and timid soul, this was no joke to him. It 
was not long, however, before he could occupy his time and place 
in uttering his own thoughts in public, instead of attempting to 
repeat those of others. He was soon marked as one of the best 
and most active and ambitious students of the school. This led 
to the inquiry who he was, and who and where his parents and 
family, and soon brought down the contempt and scorn of jealous 
rivals on his sensitive soul ; for they despised and were ashamed 
of one who had no legal right to be born, although forced into 
earth-life involuntarily. But he found sympathy and some warm 
friends among the students, and no partiality in the teachers, even 
though he was an Infidel in a school under theological control. 
He was ever punctual, and obedient to every rule. Here he 
formed an acquaintance with several students whose views were 
similar to his own ; and here he found works of Infidel authors, 
as they were called, which he found to contain more reason, and 
more charity, than any religious books he had ever read. Here 
he became confirmed in his religious scepticism. The common 
branches of education were reviewed, and some proficiency made 
in Latin, when he left this school, to attend one commenced in his 
native town, where his history was better known, and where he 
deserved, at least, more sympathy. Here the period of study was 
short ; for all the funds acquired by hard labor ever since the 
death of his mother were nearly exhausted, and would not allow 
him to continue long in an academy. It was with deep regret 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 43 

that he left the school ; for his soul had caught a glimpse of the 
beauties of science, and began to taste the sweet waters of litera- 
ture, and he yearned for a feast from those fountains, but yearned 
in vain, for Poverty had set her seal on him. In that day it was 
far more difficult than in this for a poor boy to acquire an education. 
Theology offered to open the doors, and educate him into the min- 
istry, if he would get religion ; but his soul abhorred hypocrisy 
and deception ; and he did not believe their doctrines were true, 
and would not pretend it, although he was aware that many stu- 
dents in theological charity believed as little as he did, and only 
accepted it to obtain an education, and an easy way to obtain a 
livelihood. Such a course he spurned, and chose rather a crust 
and freedom of thought with an honest heart. He could discover 
no opening to an education for him without sacrificing his honesty 
and integrity of character ; and without a thorough scientific or 
classical education the path to the highest hill-tops of society was 
indeed a rugged one ; but History turned down to him her scroll 
of fame, and pointed out this road : 

" If thou wouldst "win a lasting fame, 
If thou the immortal wreath wouldst claim, 
And make the fukire bless thy name, 
Begin thy perilous career ; 
Keep high thy heart, thy conscience clear, 
And walk thy way without a fear ; 
And if thou hast a voice within 
That ever whispers, ' Work and win,' 
And keeps thy soul from sloth and sin ; 
If thou canst plan a noble deed, 
And never flag till it succeed, 
Though in the strife thy heart shouldst bleed ; 
If thou canst struggle day and night, 
And, in the envious world's despite, 
Still keep thy cynosure in sight ; 
If thou canst bear the rich man's scorn, 
Nor curse the day that thou wert born, 
To feed on husks, and he on corn ; 
If thou canst dine upon a crust, 



44 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

And still hold on with patient trust, 

Nor pine that Fortune is unjust ; 

If thou canst see with tranquil breast 

The knave or fool in purple drest, 

Whilst thou must walk in tattered vest ; 

If thou canst rise ere break of day, 

And toil and moil till evening gray 

At thankless work for scanty pay ; 

If in thy progress to renown 

Thou canst endure the scoff and frown 

Of those who strive to put thee down ; 

If thou canst bear the averted face, 

The gibe and treacherous embrace 

Of those who run the self-same race ; 

If thou in darkest days canst find 

An inner brightness in thy mind 

To reconcile thee to thy kind ; — 

Whatever obstacle control, 

Thine hour will come, — go on, true soul]! 

Thou 'It win the prize, thou 'It reach the goal. 

If not, what matter ? — Tried by fire, 

And purified from low desire, 

Thy spirit shall but soar the higher. 

Content and hope thy heart shall buoy, 

And man's neglect shall ne'er destroy 

The inward peace, the secret joy." 

He accepted the offer and left the school, yielding desire to 
necessity, and started on the road to fame, as marked out by the 
poet, although he often met those to whom the other lines of the 
same noem were more appropriate. 

" Pause e'er thou tempt the hard career ; 
Thou 'It find the conflict too severe, 
And heart will break, and brain will sear. 
Content thee with an humbler lot ; 
Go plough thy field, go build thy cot, 
Nor sigh that thou must be forgot." 

Buried in clouds, far, far away, was the " tip-top house " where 
fame had her sentinel-guarded citadel ; but thither he was bound, 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 45 

even though it might take centuries to obtain a niche in it, unless 
he should cease to exist ere he reached it ; but this he feared 
would be his fate at death. 

Full of hopes and fears, — about equally mixed, — he started 
for Boston in search of fortune, loitered about her streets a few 
days, too timid to ask often for employment, and too bashful to 
make his wants and situation known to those who could have 
aided him. His mind, however, was active, gathering shells of 
knowledge for a cabinet. Surprised at the close proximity of ex- 
treme wealth and extreme poverty, he wondered if both were 
necessary for the existence of each, and finally concluded that ex- 
treme wealth could only exist by extreme poverty, as some must 
be robbed if others possessed their wealth. Then he asked the 
Christian why God allowed a portion of his children to be robbed 
by others, and the Christian said it was a mystery. But he 
thought it ought to be revealed in order for us to be reconciled to 
it, and set his mind to work out the mystery which God would 
not reveal to his worshippers, and found the cause in an aristocratic 
monopoly, and unjustifiable worldly selfishness ; but he soon saw 
the truth of Shelley's lines, — 

6 s There needeth not the hell that bigots frame 
To punish those who err ; earth itself 
Contains the evil and the cure." 

Finding no business, he went to Brookline, a few miles from 
Boston, and engaged to work on a farm that was all a garden, — 
or a garden that was large enough for a farm, — labored a few 
weeks, and was taken sick with pleurisy. The physician told him to 
leave the coast, as the sea-breezes were bad for him to take. Then 
he nearly drained his little purse to reach again his native town, 
and be laughed at by the boys, if not the girls ; but the latter did 
not as often grate his feelings with rudeness or ridicule as the 
former. 

The younger brother of Bracket had married and opened a law- 
office in the village of his native town, and was post-master and 



46 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

partner in a store of goods. To him the Lone One engaged, to tend 
store and office, and boarded in the neat little home of Moses the 
lawyer, where the happy life of Moses and Abby, and the kind 
and loving heart of Mary, the sister of Abby, made social life 
attractive, almost fascinating, to the lone heart of the orphan. 
Not many months was he in this house before he found his heart 
involuntarily leaning toward Mary ; for sh'e was beautiful and 
lovely, externally and internally ; both body and mind were 
attractive. How could such a being fail to call out the love of an 
ardent soul, which was more than full ? For a time he yielded to 
the delightful emotions of a pure attraction, and spent some happy 
hours in her society ; but she was his superior in years and ex- 
perience, and soon began to check the wild hopes and youthful 
fancies of his soul, and turned his feelings to, and through, his 
intellect. Then he reflected on his condition in poverty and dis- 
grace ; but she had too noble a soul to despise him for his birth ; 
but to live in poverty and dependence was too severe a trial for her 
delicate frame, reared in tenderness and wealth, in a seaport town, as 
it was. The soul of the Lone One had been too much awakened 
to remain and endure the presence of one he loved so devotedly, 
and early in the spring of '35 he collected his little earnings, 
and called on his old friends to give a farewell parting to each, 
and last, but not least, a final sitting with Mary. Those who 
know need not be told, and those who do not, cannot understand, 
the feelings which this parting produced ; for now, if not before, 
he knew she loved him, and he long before knew he loved her ; 
and the chord must be broken, never more to be united. They 
parted, never met again, nor exchanged one word by correspond- 
ence. She was married not many years after to a friend of his, 
who was often called by the same name, — for his middle name 
was the same as the first of the Lone One, — and lived a few 
years with him, and then went home to live with the angels, where 
more congenial society for her refined soul could be enjoyed. The 
tie must break, but he felt what Shakspeare wrote, — "A fiend 
as dear as thee might bear my soul to hell," or Moore, in 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 47 

" 0, grief beyond all other griefs ! when fate 
First leaves the young heart lone and desolate 
In the wide world, without that tie 
For which it loved to live or feared to die. 
Lorn as the hung-up lute, which ne'er hath spoken 
Since the sad day its master-chord was broken." 

It is not probable that the heart of the Lone One will ever, in 
this life, drop this subject ; but we will drop it here, and ask thee, 
reader, if thee was ever in Xew Hampshire in an election-storm, 
or town-meeting-time? If not, I shall not attempt to describe 
that either, for only those who have been " out in it " can know how 
it blows, and beats, and makes the stout hearts bend as reeds before 
" Mudgekeewis." One of these annual monsoons passed over New 
Hampshire a few days before the Lone One left, and he was out 
in it, trying, with others, to elect his democratic friend, Moses, to 
the legislature. They failed this time, but afterward it became 
easy to elect him even to Congress, and the XL'S. Senate, where 
he lived and died, many years after, with democratic honors, but 
not many others. The Lone One soon learned that Democracy 
was more a name to elect persons with, than a principle ; and that 
nearly all political strife was personal, and only personal. The 
boys, old and young, great and small, in that state, think it 
requires a great man to hold a seat in the legislature, and that to 
be elected is a great honor ; but those who obtain it usually find 
it of little worth, except to lengthen the name by a prefix of Hon., 
but seldom makes a man honorable. Society is a three-fold 
structure, corresponding to our houses, with the social relations 
for the basis, or foundation, cemented with love in marriage, — 
when there is any in it, — and with the political relations for the 
frame, finished and braced with officers, and with the covering, or 
third part, of religion, nailed with rusty preachers, or bright and 
new ones, and sometimes painted with creeds, red with the fire of 
a pit, or black with eternal doom, or white with universal sal- 
vation, or yellow with hope, etc. The three are all essential to 
man, and hence we must not repudiate even politics ; for society 



48 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

would fall without them. Perhaps we can improve the old mode 
of framing and raising, but cannot dispense with it. Morality 
is an ingredient, or should be, in society, and in each part ; and is 
what the finish is to the house, or texture to the body and brain 
of man. It is rather scarce in our day in either department, 
especially in politics, but may be cultivated even there. 

The heart of the Lone One was already yearning for the love and 
sympathy of a happy home and social life, and his ambitious mind 
was aspiring to and for political action, and his religious nature 
was already feasting on Rationalism, the best religion he could 
find in that country. The Boston Investigator was his religious 
paper and guide, and one of the best for a young mind ; for it 
teaches a reader to think, and develops intellect, which, in riper 
years, will be able to discover its errors. 

Section II. 

FLED. 

The last days and sad hours spent in his native town at length 
passed by, and the tears ceased for a time to drop from the eyes 
of the few whose swollen hearts pressed them out. The coach 
came rattling up to the door, and the passenger entered, bound for 
the West, over hill, and vale, and river, and mountain, — green as 
name, or April, could make them, towards the old Dutch city of 
Albany. In his memory, well stored away, as in a picture- 
gallery, were faces and forms to be recalled in the far-distant 
land ; and hills, and valleys, and houses, with scenes of sorrow 
and joy, all arranged in order for examination and review ; sun- 
dered ties, and broken strings, arrows from hearts, and lutes 
without strings. 

" Where'er a human heart doth wear 
Joy's myrtle- wreath or Sorrow's gyves, 
Where'er a human spirit strives 
After a life more true and fair, 
There is the true man's birth-place grant, 
His is a world-wide faderland." 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 49 

The Albany city was duly reached by the " post coach " from the 
Green Mountain state, and every familiar face was left behind by 
the Lone One, — all save the likenesses as they were taken in joy 
or sorrow on the memory-plate. Here he soon found the water- 
path westward, and " ticketed through " to the west end of the 
Clinton Ditch, and had a quiet week or more on canal-boat 
in reaching Buffalo, ; what a crowd, and city, and bustle, and 
confusion ! No chance here for a raw Yankee, who had no money 
to speculate on. Therefore he took a steamboat passage as far as 
steamboats run to the west, and landed with a crowd of passen- 
gers at Detroit. Here, too, was crowd, and bustle, and still 
poorer chance for a Yankee. Here he found a schooner loading 
for Green Bay, and tried to get a passage, but his money was too 
short ; he was therefore compelled to stop, but was now far from 
every relative and old friend, and ready to make new friends. 
After seeking business about the city for a few days, he took pas- 
sage on the little boat, and landed on the River Raisin, at Mon- 
roe, and there sought a quiet family to board with, and sought 
work, of almost any kind, to pay it. After entirely exhausting his 
money, he at length found a place and wages in the variety store 
of the " red-coat man," whose fun and mirth and jolly soul 
did the heart of the Lone One good every day ; for he was a 
' heap " of fun, running over upon all around him, and as full of 
business as he was of fun. He had now found employment and 
rest for his anxious mind, and sat down to write the history of his 
journey, of which the eight days on canal reads somewhat in this 
wise : " Quartered in the cabin, well filled with emigrants west- 
ward bound — occupied with passing events, and events that 
were passing — on deck gazing at the moon, stars, or ' lower 
things ' — the mountain tops, ' low bridge,' or ragged rocks. Sit- 
ting in the cabin, early or late, chatting with a red-haired 
passenger, less in years than himself, and of the other sex, trying 
to forget the past. But this one was a Mary, also, and too often 
recalled one he would, but could not, forget. Sleeping in the 
cosey berth, as the horses towed him along the ' raging canal/ 
5 



50 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

At length the locks were lifted, the flats passed, death by mos- 
quitos escaped, — the long level shortened, the red-haired girl 
landed, and Buffalo in sight. " What was next to be done, was next 
to be planned." The Yankee boy was now in the far West ; for Mich- 
igan was then Michigan Territory, and full of speculators and land- 
hunters, and the best school to study the speculating side of 
humanity that the nation offered to a student. The honest heart 
of the Lone One was often shocked at the stories of immigrants 
and emigrants, — for both were in Detroit, — some reporting 
land covered with rattle-snakes sufficient to fence with picket 
fences into ten-acre lots, and others saying it was almost a garden 
of Eden, full of fruits and flowers ; some cursing and shaking 
with ague : one the effect of exposure and bad food and drink, and 
the other of tobacco and bad habits. Never was there a deeper- 
seated home-sickness than had now possession of the Lone One ; 
and, although he had left no home, and had none to return to, 

yet, 

" 0, never can there be to man an earth 
So green, or sky so pure, or stranger hearth 
So welcome, and so warm and bright, 
As where his boyhood's years fled by ! " 

The Lone One was now fully resolved to once more return to 
his rocky native state, which was also the native state of the red- 
coat man, as soon as his wages would enable him to do so. The 
River Raisin is wide, rapid, shallow, and beautiful, at this place. 
For many years the banks had been settled and cultivated by the 
Canadian French, who were quietly smoking the domestic to- 
bacco, and eating their cabbages and sturgeon, before the Yankees 
started a city and smoked out the old settlers, or bought them out 
by, or with, whiskey and cheat. The new settlers were often mo- 
lested by ague and fever, and occasionally by cholera ; and some 
were driven back East, and some over Jordan, by these enemies to 
quiet and speculation. During this season the Toledo war raged 
in all its violence, and Monroe was the head-quarters for the 
armies of Michigan and mosquitos. Those who have never read 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 51 

the history of this war need not look for it here ; for our narrative 
will only admit of a few allusions to important facts, such as the 
whole number killed in the war was, one horse, and all the hens, 
and turkeys, and bees, and most of the pigs, between Monroe and 
Toledo, and an equal or greater number in Ohio, by the Buckeye 
army. The Lone One was sent for, but could not go, for his soul 
abhorred wars, and this ridiculous farce more than any other. 
The red-coat man did go, but only for fun, with a red coat and 
tin gun, to make joke-music for the crowd ; for he could do it. 

" ! who would fight, and march, and countermarch, 
Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field, 
And shovelled up into a bloody trench, 
Where no one knows — and all for fame ? 
Not I!" 

There was an end to this war, although no historian has ever 
recorded it, and this narrative does not contain it ; for the Lone 
One did not have hold at either end nor middle. The bush end 
was, however, supposed to be among the tax-payers some years 
after peace was restored, not declared, for it never was declared. 
Once only had the Orphan been made to follow a man in " cap 
and feathers," with a gun on his shoulder, at a training, and that at 
sixteen ; and this he resolved should be the sum of his military 
experience, even if it cost imprisonment ; for both conscience and 
reason rebelled against the farce of training, and the cruelties of 
war. Governor Lucas, of Ohio, and Governor Stevens T. Mason, 
of Michigan, were the two great powers who won the immortal 
honors in this war, which has been equalled only once in our coun- 
try, in the " War of the Gauges," the seat of which was at Erie, 
Pennsylvania, through which the Lone One also passed with about 
the same dangers and glories as in the other, though somewhat 
later in the history of the wars of Ohio, These wars were like 
the Chian wine, " flavored unto him who drinketh it," but had not 
much pleasant flavor to others, and even to them who drank, like 
other wine, they caused a severe hair-pulling afterward*. 



52 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

Section III. 

NEAK JORDAN. 

The summer-greens, which constituted the principal fruit and 
shade-tree vegetation of the region round about Monroe, were 
fading into autumn-brown, or had already cast off their foliage, 
to scud in the winds, under " bare poles," during winter, when the 
Lone One began to count up his wages, and feel that he could once 
more return to the land of his childhood and hardships ere the 
close of navigation ; for, after the lake and canal boats stopped 
running, there would be no chance till spring should again unlock 
the ice-bound shores; but " there is a power that shapes us to our 
ends," and lays the lines of human life that lead us to our goals. 
Down came the blow of fate's great hammer, and a fever, hot and 
cold, wrapped the body of the Lone One alternately in a cold and 
hot " pack," till he sank, sank, sank, to the struggle with life and 
death, and with the old catholic physician, who had not much inter- 
est, but some anxiety, in the pending fate. Now came a time when 
he needed not only care and attention, but love and sympathy ; 
for his excitable soul could only be holden to earth and to his 
body by the magnetic power of a kindred soul ; and this he found 
and received from the sister of the red-coat man, with whom he 
boarded. She was mated, and lived pleasantly, without wealth 
or luxury, and furnished a quiet home for her brother and his 
clerks. Now, for the first time, the Lone One discovered the 
affectionate nature, the kind heart, the loving soul, of the sis- 
ter ; for she saved him, when the doctor could not, by the magnetic 
power of her ardent soul. Slowly the recuperative energies of 
his body revived and renewed his hold on life ; and, with the aid 
from others, he recovered, late in autumn, sufficient strength to get 
back to the store, and shake with ague, and burn with fever, on 
each alternate day, for a few weeks, until he learned the nature of 
this loathsome disease, which of all diseases of our Western States 
plays upon our hopes and fears most carelessly, and ever leaves us 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 53 

more discouraged at each turn of its chill-tide. Grloomy, indeed, 
was the prospect ; his wages were used up, and he was in debt for 
" medicine and attendance," and winter had come, and, worse still, 
the ague had come, to hold him down from a recovery of health 
and strength. Sorry and sad was the heart of the orphan in this 
gloom of prospects ; but the pleasant smile and kind words of the 
sister and her husband (for he was a kind man) often touched and 
encouraged him, and the jokes and fun of the red-coat brother 
would sometimes almost make a pious man laugh, or a Quaker 
forget his gravity. Thus he lived into winter, outgrew the ague, 
and again engaged, at low wages, once more to try and pay the 
debts, and procure means to return to New Hampshire. Those, 
and those only, who have taken a course of ague and fever, can 
realize how it makes a live person feel. How it provokes one to 
wish the " Old Nick " would take hold and shake the body to pieces 
at once. How it makes one hate to live in it, and feel too mean 
to die with it. This is probably the reason so few do die with it. 
When the spring of '36 came, and one year's experience in the 
West was summed up, it read about thus : No money gained ; hard 
battle with chill fever* and acclimated by ague ; lived through one 
war ; found one affectionate woman, with a heart and soul worthy 
a better country and society ; but, like every person with whom 
he had found true charity, or real sympathy of soul (except Mary), 
she was not a professor of religion. Thus his experience continued 
to prove that professed Christians were not better than others, if 
as good ; confirming what infidel writers had written on this subject, 
and more firmly convincing him that religion was only a shell, 
covering a rotten system of creeds and pretences. 

When the May roses began to blossom, the restless and unhappy 
spirit resolved to make one more effort to better his condition 
and obtain money to return, cf which he had not enough, and 
feared he never should have, when the demands of sickness and 
raiment were taken from his earnings. A prospect of higher wages 
induced him to start south, even in that unfavorable season of year, 
which would really endanger his life. The boat took him to 
5* 



54 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

Cleveland, and the stage to Beaver, Pennsylvania, and a river 
boat to Cincinnati, where, with some letters of introduction, he 
sought employment, but in vain. Diffident, even timid, and almost 
entirely unacquainted with western business life, he failed, as 
nineteen in every twenty would under such circumstances, to find 
employment, and made one more move, to Louisville, Kentucky. 
Fed at a hotel, and engaged an old man in an intelligence office to 
get him a place. The old man gave him good advice, and much 
caution against the vices which ruin so many young men in the 
South and West. Although it was not needed by the orphan, it was 
kindly received and duly appreciated, while what he needed more 
for his money was never obtained. Somebody always stepped in 
before him, and the old man's fair prospects and encouraging 
promises all ended in disappointment, and so did all other efforts, 
until the Lone One, almost distracted with his condition, entirely 
friendless, nearly penniless, and too sensitive to make his condition 
known, and accept some service to pay his board, finally resolved 
to return, but how, he could not devise. His trunk, with his all, 
scanty as it was, he could not carry, and did not think he could 
part with his books and few remaining clothes, and take the foot- 
path to Monroe. He found he could pay his bill at the hotel, and 
a deck fare on a boat to Portsmouth, where a canal from Cleve- 
land lets down its boats to the Ohio. This was soon resolved upon, 
and he was moving up the river moneyless and supperless, with 
no prospects of a change in his favor by which he could go farther, 
or get food and lodging ; but he had looked hunger in the face, 
before, and once almost stared him out of countenance, and thought 
he could do it again rather than beg. To work he was willing, but 
to beg he was not, for he had health and strength^ and in such a 
country as ours these ought always to supply our wants, but they 
often fail. He reached Portsmouth, and found a boat ready to 
start for Cleveland on the canal ; and on board he went and en- 
gaged a passage with board, and thus procured food, for his body 
was now suffering for want of its aliment. The next great ques- 
tion was how to pay. It was a great relief to find he was not 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 55 

required to pay in advance. There were several passengers on 
board, and he brought out some of his school-books, and tried in 
vain to sell some of them. That was " no go ; " had they been nov- 
els, or trash of the yellow-cover stripe, no doubt he would have 
been more successful. What next ? He had no clothes worth offer- 
ing or to spare, but he tried next to sell his best coat ; but it was 
an " old coat," and would not bring any money. One or two offered 
to sivap with him for boot, so he could have a better one. No 
relief; and the day passed, and early bedtime found him weeping 
in his berth. Sleepless through the night he lay, turning in body 
and mind, reviewing himself and all his past life, and wondering 
what sin he had committed to merit this punishment. Almost 
resolved to go out and fall in the canal, and try to escape from the 
miserable existence which his parents or God had forced upon 
him. But his soul shuddered at the thought of self-murder, as 
it ever had at every species of crime. How could he believe 
there was a God ? or, if there was, that It was a good God ? 
Especially, if it was God who killed his mother and now al- 
lowed her poor orphan child to suffer in this way, certainly he 
could not be good. Perhaps he was offended because the boy did 
not pray for, and supplicate favors and aid ; but he never knew an 
instance of God feeding a hungry person by being asked to do so 
in prayer, and he had no confidence to ask God for money to pay 
his passage. He would have been ashamed to ask a fellow-mortal, 
and more so to ask God. There was no hope for help in that 
direction, nor could he see any in any other. The long sleepless 
night at length came to an end, and he was early up to meet the 
faces of all strangers, as the day before ; but, when they crept out 
of their berths, behold, one familiar face came out ; a young man 
whom he had seen at Monroe had come on board in the night at 
aome landing-place, and crawled, unobserved by the sleepless orphan, 
into a berth. Had he seen him, he might have slept some, or, at 
least, found a new subject for reflection. The next difficulty was 
how to approach the young man with his case, and try to obtain 
relief; for his acquaintance was very limited, being barely suffi- 



56 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

cient for recognition. The Lone One lost no time in securing such 
items as would free his mind from doubts and fears. First he learned 
that the young man was bound for Monroe ; this produced a thrill 
of joy which only those who know the importance of such little 
circumstances at times of trial, and whose souls are keen and sens- 
itive, can know. A wave of joy ran over the nerves of the orphan 
at this news. After much ceremony, many delays, and several 
unsuccessful attempts, like a timid lover at question-popping time, 
he at last succeeded in asking for money enough to pay his fare to 
Monroe on the canal and lake boats, and promised to repay it on 
arrival, for he was sure he could borrow it there. His heart 
leaped for joy, and the tears filled his eyes, until he was ashamed 
of his weakness, when the almost stranger took out his money, and 
handed him all he asked for, and offered more if he needed it. 
The confidence and kindness of this young man' touched a tender 
chord in his feelings, that had seldom been vibrated in the music 
of life ; the mournful notes were silenced, and hope beamed on 
his countenance once more. Until we sink into deep distress and 
suffering we can never know how much joy some little favor, at 
particular times, can afford us ; then we duly appreciate kindness, 
and learn important lessons for life, and often learn how to make 
others happy. It was not long after our sorry orphan had reached 
Monroe, and borrowed the money of a clerk in the store of the red- 
coat man, and repaid it to the passenger with more thankfulness 
than he could express in words, that he found out that this 
young man, who was intelligent, moral, honest, and consistent, in 
his life and actions, was, in the estimation of the Christians, a 
notorious infidel, and the son of infidel parents, — that the family 
never attended church, nor paid the preacher. This made another 
item in the experience of the Lone One. 

A few friends seemed glad at his return, but none welcomed 
him more cordially than the sister and her husband. He soon 
procured employment as clerk in the post-office, "and began once 
more to try the up-hill of life in a journey after money; for he 
found himself in a world of mostly Yahoos, where 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 57 

" Gold is the god the Yahoos adore ; 

There no man 's criminal unless he 's poor." 

There are said to be times, in the history of men, when the boy 
sows his wild oats ; being a sort of reckless time for scattering 
moral, and all other qualities of actions broad-cast. This may be 
as applicable to states, territories, and communities, as to persons. 
Michigan was sowing her wild oats in the years which were run- 
ning through the great year-glass when these incidents occurred, 
the most prolific crop of which came up and were harvested in 
wild-cat notes some time after. The population consisted mainly 
of land speculators and fortune-seekers, which pursuits in them- 
selves would not make persons bad ; but the constant commotion, 
fluctuating prospects, and varied vicissitudes, of those times, brought 
out to the surface, as a warm pack does the measles, the worst 
features in the population. Michigan was then a hard state, or 
territory, for it is not yet certain when she became a state ; for 
this was a year of two governments, or one, or none ; and the 
people could not determine which, neither can history. Only a 
few months of quiet business in this department, and another 
change of occupation, although he had heard it said " a rolling 
stone gathers no moss." Shrewd business men in Michigan, who 
watched the passing events, knew that breakers were ahead, and 
the red-coat man was of that kind ; and when the autumn 
glided into winter a new firm occupied the old store, and tried 
to sell the remnants of everything ; for the old variety-shop 
contained all sorts of traps, from ox -yokes to little pills of 
Nux put up in homoeopathic bottles. One of the new firm soon 
sold to the Lone One. Poor as he was, his credit was good, be- 
cause his habits were good, and his word reliable ; but at this 
time such credit did not prove an advantage, for it gave, in the 
change, promises of better days, and brought darker and harder 
trials than ever before, in consequence of changes which had their 
origin in this misstep in business. . He had not learned the neces- 
sity, every young man' without pecuniary means was under, of 



58 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

securing first some money before he assumes debts and liabilities, 
or social responsibilities requiring money in greater or less abun- 
dance. But he was now in a fair way to learn it by experience, 
which would doubtless make a deep and lasting impression. The 
young merchants were not elated, but resolved on the strictest 
economy and close application to business, which in ordinary 
times would have enabled them to sustain themselves even with- 
out the capital, as they had long credit and low interest, neither 
of which were common in that country at that time. The desire 
to return East had expired, burned itself out, and the Lone One 
now resolved to make the West his future home ; and, indeed, he 
might as well, for Mary was married, or engaged to be soon, and 
he had no relatives, east or west, who felt any interest in his 
whereabouts, save as they did in other persons who were not akin ; 
or rather only two or three females, who could not aid him, except 
by sympathy. Of these was one fair-haired cousin, whose sym- 
pathy he could not receive, because in him it produced love in 
return, which she could not receive ; and he had now resolved to 
break every tie to New Hampshire in his feelings, and harden all 
but his conscience for western life. That he never could harden, 
for it was master over him, although it might have been a creat- 
ure of education, as some people say it is. His home was with 
the kind sister of the red-coat man, for certainly he would never 
board at any other place while she would feed him at her table, 
where kind words were only in correspondence with the neatness 
and order and excellent selections of food and dishes. She was a 
native of New Hampshire, and had an attractive old homestead 
there, and many kind friends, and relatives almost without number ; 
and in this autumn of '36 she repaired thither for a visit, leaving 
the Lone One to take care of the house and girls, &e. Of this 
visit it may be said " thereby hangs a tale " which requires a 
rest ; so we will stop over here. 

" Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings 
Of that invisible instrument, the soul, 
And play the prelude of our fate." 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 59 

Section IV. 

ANOTHER LINE. 

" I saw two clouds at morning 

Tinged by the rising sun ; 
And in the dawn they floated on, 

And mingled into one ; 
I thought that morning cloud was blest 5 
It moved so sweetly to the west. 

" I saw two summer currents 

Flow smoothly to their meeting, 
And join their course with silent force, 

In peace each other greeting ; 
Calm was their course through banks of green, 
While dimpling eddies played between. 

*' Such be your gentle motion, 

Till life's last pulse shall beat ! 
Like summer's beam and summer's stream, 

Float on, in joy, to meet 
In calmer sea, where storms shall cease — 
In purer sky, where all is peace." 

On the west side of the Granite State is a small district called 
Sullivan County. Two hundred years ago it was a dense forest 
of evergreens, with subsoil rich in granite boulders and sand. Now 
it comprises some of the best farms in the state, and several beau- 
tiful villages, with long rows of summer-green shade-trees, fine 
gardens, capacious dwellings, and plenty of churches and school- 
houses. On one of these farms, high up on the hill-side, lived 
Enoch and Betsey, and reared a family of boys and girls by 
unceasing toil and rigid economy; for only by such could a 
family live on such a farm, and improve it, until, like this one, it 
became a valuable old homestead. Many, many years ago there 
lived in England a man whose occupation was thatching, and they 
called him John, or William the Thatcher. He took to himself a 
wife, and they had little thatchers. These grew up, and did like- 
wise. The friends dropped the, and thus, like many other family 



60 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

names, began the Thatcher family, which has branched out and 
multiplied exceedingly ; one line of which ran so close to the house 
of Enoch, that the farms and families joined, and the kindred 
currents of blood connected the families as the brooks did the 
farms. Hand in hand, and side by side, the two families struggled 
through years, with rocks too vast for " Ajax' throw," and snow- 
drifts deep enough for an Esquimaux den such as Dr. Kane 
describes in his Arctic expedition. The father of Enoch had 
nearly worn out his body on the farm before he transferred it to 
his son and Betsey, and quietly resigned his body and deaconship 
to rest, after a long life of toil. Then his spirit went home to 
its heaven of kindred souls, for he was a good man. Enoch 
was a man of industry, economy, and practical piety, but was 
never entangled in the meshes of a church creed. He trusted 
God to judge him by his life, without a priest to plead for him 
as a member of a church ; and, as we learn from the spirit-world, 
to which he moved in ripened years and extreme old age, he found 
as warm a welcome and good friends there as those who spent 
much of life in building churches and supporting preachers, and 
progresses much faster there than the creed-bound souls. Betsey, 
who was closely linked to the Thatcher family, but not in name, 
was more closely entwined in the religion of a church, and securely 
locked in the Baptist fold of close communion notoriety ; but she 
was one of the best of New England's wives and mothers, and a 
conscientious and exemplary Christian, and would have been as 
sure of heaven (if there is a heaven for the good), if there had 
never been a church in the nation, as she is with all her church 
connections. She still lingers at the old homestead, familiar with 
its growth and changes through more than half a century. 
Enoch and Betsey reared to man and womanhood two sons and 
three daughters, and let several others drop into the arms of 
angels, to be reared under the guidance and direction of spirits in 
the other country, where so many little children go to get their 
education, and growth, and religion ; whether under more favora- 
ble circumstances than in this is not certainly known, but by 






LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 61 

many believed to be so. The eider son served out his time on 
the homestead farm, with much sickness arising from the bite of a 
mad fox ; then married a religious wife of excellent disposition, 
and with her, settled in the vicinity of .his native home, travelled 
some, and traded more, till he had a homestead of his own, and 
with his mate reared a large family of sons" and daughters. The 
sons, with much business talent and well adapted to speculation in 
the West, repaired thither to get rich, but with no religious tend- 
encies, and little mental, intellectual, or spiritual development, 
in or for other departments of life. The daughters grew to a 
goodly stature in body and mind, and would have been fine speci- 
mens of Yankee girls, had not the natural powers and elasticity 
of their minds been cramped by the theology of the school where 
they completed their education, and by the still more narrow 
creed and discipline of the church at home, into which they were 
pressed. The father stemmed the current of superstition until 
about the middle of life, when he was caught by an epidemic 
revival and locked in the Baptist fold, and, with a zeal and devo- 
tion worthy a better cause, lost his labor in his efforts to convert 
sinners. But he is still stout for the fight; has on the whole 
armor of the church, and is zealously aiding to roll on the secta- 
rian car over " Jordan's hard road to travel on." The other son 
was the red-coat man of the River Raisin, whose peculiar 
genius led him early from home, to roam and speculate, and get 
rich two or three times in life, and to get into, and out of, religion, 
and almost everything else, several times. His narrative-path, on 
land and sea, high and low, up and down, to his present home, on 
the west shore of Lake Erie, at his own little village, where a large 
house, full of wife and babies, is the home of all who come to it, 
would be highly interesting ; for he was always an interesting 
man. But we have no room for it here ; we have already 
" switched off " our narrative too often to allow other trains to 
pass; and fear, if we do not keep the main track where we have 
"the right of way, we may be behind time at our depot. 

The eldest daughter married out of the name, and carried the 
6 



62 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

homestead to another line of heirships ; but for quiet domestic 
life, few daughters of the mountain did better, or as well, as 
Sally. Few happier homes could be found than she had, and 
made for her parents and friends. One only child, a daughter, 
was the offspring of this union. In childhood, the pet; in girl- 
hood, the favorite of every acquaintance. In '55 a stranger found 
her at the old homestead with a beautiful little pet daughter 
swinging in a basket in the old red kitchen, the wife of a man who 
did not change her paternal name, a returned Californian, with as 
noble and generous a heart as ever beat in a visitor to that land 
of the sunset. " What a homestead ! " exclaimed the visitor. 
" What a pet with its mother, and grandmother, and great-grand- 
mother, father and grandfather, at home ! " all in health and com- 
fort. This eldest daughter and her husband joined church with 
the mother, but like her never allowed their religion to destroy 
their humanity, or kindness to all of God's children. They never 
attempted to force their creed upon others, nor to fight their way 
to heaven ; but left the fighting for others, of more belligerent 
dispositions. 

The second daughter was the kind sister into whose care our 
wanderer fell in the time of his sickness, and whose charity and 
good qualities of soul were always a sure guaranty of heaven in 
the other life, without a religious creed ; and hence she needed 
and received none. She married in the West. Two boys were the 
offspring of the union, when a consumption seized her husband, 
and soon freed his spirit from its earthly tenement, and her from 
his efforts to obtain the means of support and education for their 
children ; but she struggled on in the West against fearful odds, 
for a time, then returned to her native town, and there, by the 
industry and economy learned of her mother, with much skill and 
ingenuity aided her boys into manhood, ever maintaining that 
kind spirit and warmth of soul which were hers in days of pros- 
perity. The other daughter was the last and youngest of the 
family, but not least in importance, especially in this narrative. 
She was the pet of both father and mother, and early pressed into 






LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 63 

the church to be saved ; for at that time there was little hope of 
the other children being saved through the church, and certainly 
one of the family ought to go with their excellent and dear 
mother, and it was an evidence of kindness, if nothing more, in 
her to join church with the mother. Of religion at that time she 
knew very little, especially of the subtle creeds of the orthodox 
church. She was educated for a teacher, and had some experi- 
ence in training the young ideas to shoot like buds into blossom, 
when, in the autumn of '36, the sister from the West returned for 
a short visit to the mountain home of her childhood. 

After much effort at persuasion the parents and eldest sister 
consented to the proposed visit of the youngest sister to Michigan, 
with a promise of return with spring. Thus arranged, when 
the husband came for his mate, and the one husband and two 
sisters started for the western home, from which very few girls 
ever return to New England without being first married. Pleas- 
antly they jolted and glided over road, and canal, and lake, and 
safely landed at Monroe, where the guest was soon introduced to 
the friends and visitors, among whom was, of course, the Lone 
One; for this was the most like a home of any he found. Only a 
few weeks, and the industrious Yankee girl was found teaching a 
school some miles in the country ; but Saturday nights she was 
found at her sister's, usually by the aid of one who boarded there ; 
and, although the horse and buggy hire was greater than amount 
received for teaching, yet economy was never a consideration in 
love affairs, and one pocket paid, while the other received, the 
sums. Is it possible the orphan is contemplating marriage, with 
no home and no means to purchase one ? Few friends, and none 
to help him to a home ; and that to a beautiful girl, with precari- 
ous health, just arrived from the East, and yet to be acclimated, 
by sickness and trials, to the western climate, — he an infidel, she 
a Christian ? 

" The dream that wishing boyhood knows 
Is but a bright beguiling spell, 
Which only lives while passion glows — 



64 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

But when this early flush declines, 

When the heart's vivid morning fleets, 

You know not then how close it twines 
Round the first kindred soul it meets." 



Moore. 



" No one is so accursed by fate, 
No one so utterly desolate, 
But some heart, though unknown, 
Responds unto his own, — 
Responds, as if with unseen wings 
An angel touched its quivering strings, 
And whispers, in its song, 
Where hast thou strayed so long ? " 

Longfellow. 

Thus it was ; but the lonely heart of the orphan had borne its 
burdens of grief and sorrow long enough alone. Why should not 
some sympathizing spirit share with him the trials and griefs ? 
The only question now was, W ho shall it be ? Who will volun- 
teer for a campaign, in which hardships are most painful 
and soul-trying, but for which there awaits a pension and coun- 
try's blessing, at last? Who will enlist and accept the commission? 
She accepted, and received the following commission : 

" When the day of life is dreary, 

And when gloom thy course enshrouds ; 
When thy step is faint and weary, 

And thy spirits dark with clouds, 
Steadfast still in thy well-doing, 

Let thy soul forget the past; 
Steadfast still the right pursuing, 

Doubt not joy shall come at last. * 

" Striving still, and onward pressing, 

Seek not future years to know, 
But deserve the wished-for blessing, — 

It shall come, though it be slow ; 
Never tiring, upward gazing, 

Let thy fears aside be cast, 
And thy trials tempting, bearing, 

Doubt not joy shall come at last. 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 65 

" Keep not then thy mind regretting; 

Seek the good, spurn evil's thrall ; 
Though thy foes thy path besetting, 

Thou shalt triumph o'er them all ; 
Though each year but bring thee sadness, 

And thy youth be fleeting fast, 
There '11 be time enough for gladness, — 

Doubt not joy shall come at last." 

But a marriage ! 0, the thoughts of a marriage ! None but 
the ardent and impassioned youth can ever know the feelings, — 
the doubts, the fears, the excited curiosity, the dreams, the mys- 
tery, which hang over an appproaching event of this nature, to 
the young, the unqualified, the untutored mind, as these, and 
most others, were at their first experiment in social and domestic 
bondage. How often these dreams of bliss unspeakable — these 
anticipations of joy beyond measure — prove only dreams, or 
fancy sketches, that fade like the mirage, or burst like the bubble 
when touched by real life ! How often does this happiest and 
most sacred institution of social life, under our present system of 
legal control and restraint, become only a wheel of persecution, 
and misery, and suffering, that soon crushes the weaker of the 
twain to an untimely death, to make way for another, often to 
follow ! How futile the attempt to legalize, regulate, and control 
the affections by statute, and make uncongenial beings love each 
other, because in the wild passions of uneducated youth they made 
a sad mistake, and, as many do by such mistakes, made each 
other miserable, instead of happy. When will the institutions of 
men be founded on nature, and contribute to our happiness, instead 
of breaking us, bone after bone, on the wheel -of an inquisition ? 

Competent observers of the social relations of our time suppose 
there are about one couple in fifty who are spiritually and physi- 
cally married, — whose souls are united, and bodies harmonized to 
each other ; and about one third of the others are fraternally mar- 
ried, and live in a sort of business relation, quietly, and often 
happily, to all outward appearance ; some feeling a kindred bond 
6* 



66 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

of sympathy, bordering on love. The rest are in sunshine and 
showers mixed, or cat and dog life, barking and snapping much of 
the time when the neighbors are not in sight or hearing. It is 
almost a certain sacrifice of happiness, health, or life, for a deli- 
cate, sensitive and refined girl, with a pure body, to be united in 
marriage to a man with a body polluted with tobacco, pork, and 
strong drink, and hardened by physical exercise so as to endure 
those poisons. Too many victims are ready to testify to this 
assertion to need other proof, and yet how seldom they caution 
the young, and warn others to avoid their terrible experience ! 

Do not be hasty, reader, in judging the fate of these two 
streams from the mountains of the Granite State, which are here- 
after to be united in one name and life, and move on in one 
channel to the ocean of spirit-life. For in your haste you may 
not judge aright. Wait and read, then inquire of each ; for from 
each you may learn the experience that at least will be an advice, 
if you need it. There are narrows and shoals, rocks and quick- 
sands, islands and windings, in nearly every stream of life with 
double channel, and the experience of pilots is not to be despised 
by the young. Sugar River empties into, and is lost in the Con- 
necticut. So this mountain lass from its banks lost a part of her 
name in that of the stranger, and took passage in the turbulent 
Life-Line of the Lone One, somewhat in this wise : On the 5th 
day of the year 1837, being the twenty-fourth natal day of the 
orphan, the sun sank slowly in the western haze of a winter sky, 
and the day faded from sight, leaving a long evening before bed- 
time. The Lone One was still only one ; had no relative in the 
West, had seen none since he left the East, and scarcely expected 
to ever more see one from that region ; for most of them were too 
poor to come so far. He was early this evening at the house of 
his kind friend. The younger sister was also present. She had 
numbered a score or more of the birth-day mile-stones, which are 
so conspicuous in our youth, and so much neglected in age. The 
parlor fire was burning brightly, the lamps were trimmed, the 
furniture tastily arranged ; the red-coat man also came early in, 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 67 

and was amusing the company with jokes, when a gentle rap at 
the door brought silence in the parlor. Slowly the doors were 
opened, and in came a dark-robed priest, from the Episcopal fort 
of devotion and defence. He was merry and sociable, and soon 
restored mirth in the circle ; but the orphan and the younger 
sister of the red-coat man were absent. Still the laugh and joke 
went round, until suddenly opened a door, and slowly, but majes- 
tically came in the Lone One, curiously robed in Quaker drab, 
and the sister in wedding white, accompanied by a youth and lass, 
who arranged themselves on either side, as the four placed them- 
selves before the priest, who now began to look grave and solemn, 
as if some terrible event was about to befall the company. The 
company remained seated, only the two who stood beside the pair, 
to catch them in case of fainting or falling by the awful cere- 
mony about to be performed. The mystic words fell slow and 
sure from the sacred lips of the " man of God," who bade these 
two to eat and sleep, to bed and board, to live and love, to com- 
mand and obey, to support and serve, to hold and bear one name, 
to the end of life's journey on earth ; but they bound no further; 
for the wise priest said, in his heaven, where his Saviour lived, 
there was no marrying nor giving in marriage. Ah, false man ! 
why work against thy prayers ? When thou prayest daily for 
that kingdom to come on earth in which there is no marrying, 
how shall it come while thy works are against thy prayers ? But 
great are the mysteries of thy ways, priesthood of earth ! They 
did not faint or fall on receiving the awful bond by which the 
priest said Grod put two beings together so that no man should 
dare to put them asunder. If Grod did do it, then the priest did 
not ; and if God did not, then the priest surely did not ; and 
hence his act was useless either way, except as a license to society 
to call them man and wife ; for the priest said they might be called 
so, for he made them so. The solemn part of the scene was short ; 
and soon the kiss, the laugh, the joke, the cake, and — last, but 
not least — the wine, went round ; and all, even the solemn priest, 
partook, and became merry, 



68 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

Slowly the company departed or retired ; and the wonderful and 
fearful bed-time came for the twain who had never known such 
lodgings before, and never can again. Somehow, there is some- 
thing mysteriously undefinable in the first month of a young mar- 
ried couple who have ever been diffident and reserved, and have 
known nothing of the relations of social or sexual life, save what 
a lying and gossipping world has told them. We shall not follow 
them to the chamber, nor through the sleepless hours, but leave 
curiosity on its tiptoe, with such caution as might be given by the 
saddened and paling countenance, and the tear-wet pillows, which 
have marked the early experience of many wedded pairs. Hap- 
piness ! Shall we call this a change for happiness, — such a 
change as brought, for both, new trials and troubles, but especially 
severe ones for the one who had left her quiet mountain home, her 
name, and her liberty, and agreed to love, serve, and obey ? No 
person with equal capacity ever tried harder to submit to fate, and 
be happy in an uncongenial condition of new and strange life, than 
did this fair girl in her new relation of wife. But the counte- 
nance paled, the form emaciated, the cough increased ; but still 
the smile ever welcomed the husband, and no complaint was ut- 
tered, save the occasional hint that an early death was approach- 
ing. Is this a solitary experience ? If so, it is not worth relat- 
ing. If not, it hath other testimonies, and the cause should be 
sought and found ; and if it was the pork, tobacco, and coffee, 
used by one only of the twain, others should be warned to avoid, 
and the young be cautioned against, their baneful effects. His 
soul could still be heard to murmur, in its sadness : 

" Though the day of my destiny 's over, 

And the star of my fate hath declined, 
Thy soft heart refused to discover 

The faults which so in airy could find. 
Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted, 

It shrunk not to share it with me ; 
And the love which my spirit hath painted 

It never hath found but in thee." 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 69 

And hers : 

" No ! let the eagle change his plume, 
The leaf its hue, the flower its bloom ; 
But ties around this heart once spun — 
They cannot, will not, be undone." 

" But the mistletoe clings to the oak, not in part, 
But with leaves closely round it ; the root in its heart 
Exists but to clasp it, — imbibe the same dew, — 
Or to fall with its loved oak, and perish there, too." 

Section V. 

ANOTHER LIEE. 

The female side of the two-in-one prayed, and the answer 



came : 



u Ask what thou wilt," said a fairy voice, 

" Ask what thou wilt of me ; 
Of all on earth thou canst have thy choice, 

On the land, or on the sea. 
I have the power rich gifts to bestow, 

And what thou wilt I '11 grant": 
But only once, I would have thee know, 

Can I supply thy want." 

Then I sat down, and pondered long 

On what the gift should be 
Which the fairy voice had kindly said 

Should be given but once to me. 
I will not ask that wealth or fame 

Should a worthless chaplet twine 
Around my brow, or adorn my name, 

Nor that beauty should be mine ; 

For these are transient as the dew 

Before the burning sun, 
And fade as quickly from the view 

Ere morning is begun. 
" In none of these," my heart replied, 

" Would the height of happiness be ; 
True love and a happy home," I cried, 

"Is all that I ask of thee." 



70 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

The fairy wrote, " 'T is granted." But, 0, the distance to it, 
and the terrible path that was to be travelled, over rocks and 
quicksands, quagmires and dismal swamps, in heats of sun, and 
storms of icy rain, more than this narrative can record, or the heart 
can ever recall and relate ! But we will follow her through the 
years to the happy home of destiny and declining years, if we 
can, (leaving out many of the sorest trials of domestic life), in a 
new country, through deep poverty, poor health, and a sick heart. 
The masculine side of the two-in-one prayed, and the answer came 
also to him ; but the prayers were not one : 

<c 0, 1 envy those 
Whose hearts on hearts as faithful can repose ; 
Who never feel the void, the wandering thought, 
That sighs o'er visions such as mine hath wrought." 

Then the impulsed answer came, with slow promise : 

" He who would be the tongue of this wide land 

Must string his harp with chords of sturdy iron, 

And strike it with a toil-embrowned hand. 

Such, such is he for whom the world is waiting 

To sing the beatings of its mighty heart ; 

Too long hath it been patient with the grating 

Of scrannel-pipes, and heard it misnamed Art." 

But thou shalt ever move 

66 With a high and holy purpose, 
Doing all thou find'st to do, 
Seeking ever man's upraising, 
With the highest end in view. 

" Undepressed by seeming failure, 
Undated by success, 
Heights attained revealing higher — 
Onward, upward, ever press. 

" Slowly moves the march of ages, 
Slowly grows the forest king ; 
Slowly to perfection cometh 
Every great and glorious thing. 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 71 

" Broadest streams from narrowest sources ; 
Noblest trees from meanest seeds ; 
Mighty ends from small beginnings ; 
From lowly promise lofty deeds. 

" Acorns which the winds have scattered 
Future navies may provide ; 
Thoughts at midnight whispered lowly 
Prove a people's future guide. 

" Such the law enforced by nature 
Since the earth her course began ; 
Such to thee she searcheth daily, 
Eager, ardent, restless man. 

" Never hasting, never resting ; 

Glad in peace, and calm in strife ; 
Quietly thyself preparing 
To perform thy part in life. 

" Earnest, hopeful, and unswerving, 
Weary though thou art, and faint, 
Ne'er despair, — there 's God above thee, 
Listing ever to thy plaint. 

9 

" Stumbleth he who runneth fast ; 
Dieth he who standeth still ; 
Nor by haste nor rest can ever 
Man his destiny fulfil." 

The letter from the Baptist church in New Hampshire, which 
she brought with her, never reached its destination in another 
church ; for she adopted the more rational religion of her husband 
readily, and ever after, slowly but finally, sought a heaven and 
home with him for the other life, as she had chosen one with him 
in this. The Lone One now had a hired home, such as his low 
circumstances would allow; was settled, not as a preacher, 
although he did sometimes preach, when opportunity offered, not 
because he was ordained, or licensed to preach, but because the 
spirit moved him to it, and he had the right by double baptism ; 



72 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

for he was often baptized by the Holy Ghost, or good spirits, and 
he had once been baptized by water ; not by human hands, but by 
God, somewhat in this wise : When quite a boy, he went alone 
on a cloudy day to a meadow, in a wood, quite secluded from 
road and farm, to angle for trout and pickerel, in a small stream 
which followed its snaky path through the meadow. It was on 
one of those cold, ocean-storm days so common on the coast of 
New England in May and June. When he reached the edge of 
the pine and hemlock forest bordering the meadow, the tall grass 
was very wet, and it began to rain steadily. Like the bathing maid 
in the Summer of Thomson's Seasons, he cast a searching glance 
around for man and beast, — for he was extremely bashful. 
Satisfied that none but he and God were present, — and before 
God he was not ashamed, — he carefully laid away every article 
of covering in a hollow log, where they would keep dry, and 
entered the meadow naked as he entered the world. Then and 
there God baptized him from the clouds for half a day or more. 
The witnesses were angels and crows, and the record made in 
heaven and his memory, and the manner was both by sprinkling 
and immersion, and he received it both in fear and trembling; for 
he feared some man or beast might come that way, and trembled 
with cold. Caught the fish, and probably a cold, and returned 
late, and quite dry for one whom God had just baptized with five 
hours' sprinkling, and an immersion in the brook. He always con- 
sidered afterward, if baptism was a saving ordinance, that this was 
sufficient for him ; as the ceremony was performed by the head of 
nature's church, and witnessed and recorded by angels. The other 
baptism was also of God, through nature, — for God was the 
author and father of his nature, — which had endowed him with 
both desire and capacity to preach, or rather to talk in public. 

Persons who resided in the Western States and figured in busi- 
ness life in '37 and '38 have not forgotten, and will not soon 
forget, the convulsions of commerce and trade at that time ; the 
suspension of banks, and failure of business men, both great and 
small. The scarcity of money, and entire want of confidence in all 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 73 

western traders and speculators, induced the Lone One to close up 
his small business, discontinue his auction and commission sales, 
return his assortment of infidel books, — which had been kept 
conspicuously on the shelf for sale, — to the owners and publish- 
ers, — the Mattsells, of New York, — to pack up such goods as he 
believed would be needed, or would sell readily, and could be 
spared from the store, and send them by and with a friend to 
Wisconsin, the land which he had selected as his future home, 
and to which he had resolved to remove early in the spring of 
'38, if the health of his wife would permit ; for he could not now 
think of going without her, although it might have been better for 
both if he had gone, and prepared a home to receive them before 
moving her. Neither the fourth volume of the Great Harmonia 
nor Esoteric Anthropology had been published, nor had any other 
book fallen into their hands which contained the instruction, so 
necessary for new beginners in domestic life, which these, and 
some of Fowler's works contain. 

Late in the fall of '37 the business was all closed up, sold out, 
and transferred, and the little family ready to move. But in the 
mean time other changes had transpired, which must be noted 
here. 

The bachelor red-coat man had become a husband, and by the 
aid of the Lone One had surveyed a village plot, ten miles from 
Monroe, named it for his native town, moved to it, and com- 
menced building a western city in a place where commerce — 
which alone builds cities — never required one. At this new home 
the husband and wife had resolved to spend the winter, with the 
brother and wife ; but there was one more whose interests and 
welfare were to be consulted. Early in the autumn the skill of 
an experienced physician was required at the home of the Lone 
One ; and, could an experienced mother have seen the pale face, 
the often almost strangled and convulsed condition, by coughing, 
of the wife, and other causes, she would not have wondered, 
more than the physician did, that three pounds of boy were 
hurried into outer life two months before the proper time, and, 
7 



74 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

breathing feebly, gave signs of life, which the skilful physician 
said could by no possible means be saved and reared to manhood. 
But he was not infallible; for, although the "little thing" did 
not grow for several weeks, and often stopped breathing to 
all appearance, yet the renewal of breath from the mother, and 
stimulants, with a warm bath, renewed and continued life, till 
the form began slowly to grow, which did not entirely stop until 
it reached a stature nearly equal to that of the father, and 
somewhat like it in form, with a mind capable of extending 
further, and better adapted to life. They gave him the name of 
a great and distinguished poet, but one whose mantle of men- 
tal and physical blindness they hoped would never fall on him. 
Slowly the form of the mother recovered partially, but not fully, 
from this premature sickness, and dragged out a miserable existence, 
in great anxiety and constant care of this pet, at the new home of 
the brother, during the long, cold winter of '37 and '38. The 
brother and wife were kind, and all tried to make her as comfort- 
able as circumstances would allow ; but they expected the spring 
would carry both mother and child to the grave-yard. But both 
survived, and the mother is now reaping the reward for her 
trials and care in the kind and dutiful attention of one of the best 
of sons, and an excellent scholar, both in science and life. The 
science of married life is a great and important science, but few have 
published to the world, for the benefit of others, their experiments 
or experience in it. If they would, — and especially those who con- 
stitutionally break down, and send to untimely graves two or three 
partners and more children, — it might be more useful to young 
people than the thousands of religious tracts and foolish novels that 
flood the markets of literature. 

One yearly mile-stone on the journey of united life had now 
been passed, and the experience of the journey deeply recorded 
on each heart. Both had now realized what most persons realize 
as the ultimate of courtship. The deep soul-yearnings of the 
Lone One, who eagerly and ardently and constantly yearned for 
love and fondness in such abundance as would bring up the want 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 75 

of long years of dearth and coldness, through which he had 
lived, could only be met and satisfied by the deepest, strongest, 
and most ardent and devoted soul, in a fully-developed body and 
mind. The tender object of his love and care had ever been — 
as the youngest child of a large family — nursed with fond- 
ness, and loved and petted, without being taught to express the 
soul's deepest emotions in return. She had never been scathed 
in the fiery furnace of trial and trouble, which has ever devel- 
oped and purified the soul of man or woman, and called out the 
inner life, with all its force and energy. With a feeble body and 
strong mental system ; large brain, coarser and more uniform 
in texture, and slower in action than the other, but capable of 
great intensity of feeling when aroused. With a scrofulous con- 
sumption on the lungs, and the duties and burdens of a wife and 
mother in poverty pressing upon her mind and body, she bore her 
burden without complaint, but in misery and sorrow ; for it was 
plainly written on her pallid countenance that the reality of mar- 
ried life, under such circumstances, was not the beautiful realiza- 
tion of the fairy dreams of girlhood, or the heaven of romance 
which novelists so often picture in the union of lovers. The 
constant labor of the husband supplied the immediate wants, but 
made little progress toward securing the more permanent comforts 
of domestic life. The snow-storms of winter were drifting around 
the border of Erie. The mother was watching and nursing, day and 
night, the pet at the new and rude home of the brother ; the hus- 
band was some distance up the river, in the forest, tending, with 
his former partner in the store — who was also a young hus- 
band, and poor — a saw-mill which they had leased, and in which 
they were, by constant hard labor, making lumber quite fast, and 
piling it up near the mill, on the hill-side, to save the labor of 
carrying it far away. Late one Saturday night, in the midst of a 
cold and windy snow-storm, the mill suddenly stopped by some 
break or obstruction in the wheel under the high water. It was 
a cold and difficult work to uncap the wheel and remove the ob- 
struction in the cold water, dark night, and exhausted condi- 



76 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

tion of their bodies, and they " raked up " their fire, and, as 
they supposed, made all safe, and started for their homes. No 
family was living in sight of the mill ; and only Thor, with his 
winds, was left to guard the mill in the absence of the occupants. 
Next morning, near ten o'clock, a Frenchman came to inform 
the partners that God had let the winds blow the fire about the 
mill, and it had all burned down, and the large pile of lumber 
had rolled in and shared the same fate. This " providential occur- 
rence " had taken place on the Sabbath day, when the occu- 
pants of the mill were resting according to command ; but when 
the winds, and snows, and fires, would not stop to rest, showing 
that God did not rest on that day, in this age, if he ever 
did. The loss of rent, lumber, and labor, was a severe one for 
both the partners, but did not change the determination of the 
Lone One to start early in the spring for Wisconsin, where he 
hoped to be able to secure a home, by industry and economy, in a 
few years. The smouldering fire-ruins of the old mill went out, 
and the day brightened into a clear, calm, and beautiful evening, 
and the Lone One was again with the mother and babe. How 
pleasant, how calm, how happy, how full of joy and love, is a truly 
wedded life, where body and spirit and mind are united by God's 
harmonic law of true marriage, which ever binds two — only two — 
souls in one life, in which the will of each is the desire of both, 
and the desire of each is ever in harmony with the interest of the 
other. 'T is a beautiful picture, which cannot be too highly wrought, 
but which is seldom realized in what we call marriage. Only 
enough instances to prove it true are to be found ; but the im- 
mortal Keats says : 

" Love in a hut, with water and a crust, 
Is — Love forgive us ! — cinders, ashes, dust ! " 

And Rogers, that 

" Through the wide world, he only is alone 
Who lives not for another." 

And Froude, that 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 77 

" Love is not in our power, — 

Nay, what seems stranger, is not in our choice ; 
We only love where fate ordains we should, 
And, blindly fond, oft slight superior merit." 

This little family had no home, and faint, indeed, was the glim- 
mering hope of soon obtaining one. The restless and ambitious, 
but unsatisfied, soul of the husband had yielded to the earnest 
wish of the wife to seek first a home, after obtaining which, per- 
haps, all other desirable things might be added, as to those who 
seek first, and find, the kingdom of heaven, which, according to the 
latest interpretation, is the sphere of spirit-life. Early in spring 
the little group of three, two of them almost helpless, started on 
the watery path, by schooner, round the rivers and lakes, to a spot 
called Southport, on the west shore of Lake Michigan, where a 
company, promising the Lone One employment, had partly pur- 
chased a tract of land for purposes of speculation. Three long 
weeks, — sick all the time, — they were tossed, and drifted, and 
floated, and blown, on the waters ; and, passing, in a gale of wind, 
the Southport landing, they were at last unshipped, in persons and 
effects, in Chicago, to have their few effects nearly destroyed in 
being again shipped on another schooner, with another freight 
and passage bill to pay. After four more days of beating against 
wind and fate, they at last were landed* on the sand-beach of 
destination, with a few dollars of good money, and a few of 
" wild-cat " and " red-dog," which only served to deceive them 
with illusive hopes of purchasing necessaries. A few articles for 
housekeeping were brought along, and those were nearly ruined in 
the journey, as the health of the three seemed to be. They had been 
often told, by the kind Captain M'Niff, of the Barker, that they 
would certainly have to deposit the babe in the lake, or bury it on 
shore, and that the mother's chance was but little better for life. 
But they all landed alive, and never was a heart gladder to set 
foot on shore than was that of the Lone One, even though in 
poverty and among strangers. Twenty dollars of the small amount 

with which he started had been kindly loaned to him by an infidel 

7# 



78 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

friend in Monroe, without note or script, and without which they 
could not have reached the destination by the reshipment at 
Chicago. Many years after, this sum was returned without 
interest, but with much gratitude for the kindness and patience. 
When the most tedious and stormy voyage of fourteen years' ex- 
perience by the captain had terminated, and the foot of the Lone 
One was once more on sand or sod, amid grass, and flowers, and 
budding trees, and singing birds, he felt renewed in heart and 
hope, and once more resolved to renew his efforts to secure a home 
by industry and economy. The first effort was to procure a house, 
or room, or even a shanty, in which they could live, or stay, more 
cheaply than they could pay board. But no such place could be 
procured, and the best, and all he could do, was to take board at a 
tavern (not a hotel), at a price he could not expect to pay by 
labor, even if he could find plenty of work and ready pay. The 
next business was to search out the lands and prospects of the 
company (who had really been severely taken in), and write to 
the one of them who was his friend, and had promised him em- 
ployment. This he did at once, giving him the facts and prospects, 
which at once put an end to the scheme, and to his hopes of busi- 
ness in that direction, and offended some citizens who hoped to 
get, at least, one more payment on the purchase. But he was too 
conscientious to yield even to his own necessities, and did his duty. 
It was the 10th of May when they landed among the eager and 
pocket-hungry settlers, — a man and woman well dressed, with the 
palest and deadest living baby they ever saw. Some guessed they 
had money. Others guessed they were going on a claim, to " hold " 
it. But the next day satisfied all, when they found the man had 
examined and condemned the purchase of the Monroe company, 
that he was not a speculator, at least. On the 12th, early in 
morn, the Lone One could have been seen "streaking it" across 
the prairie, and through wood, and all day long leaning and step- 
ping westward in search of the quarter-section, which was claimed 
and improved, on Whitewater prairie, by his old widower friend, 
by and with whom he had shipped the goods the fall before, and 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 79 

which he now so much needed, and which, it seemed, they needed 
to save them from starvation, or, at least, a near approach to it. 
Without much regard to road or stream, he kept, as near as he 
could, on the compass course to the sixty or seventy miles distant 
point, where his hopes were centred. Some time in the day he 
overtook a shanty, and, as every settler in that time kept tavern, 
of course he got some dinner and directions, and a little rest, and 
then pursued again his journey. As the evening shades came 
like darkening waves over the earth, a rain-cloud appeared in the 
west, and hurrying, as everything hurries in the great West, it 
soon brought both rain and darkness over the head of the wan- 
derer. His feet were then on a large prairie, like an open sea ; he 
found a path leading across it, but not in the direction he wished 
to travel, and the best prospect was a supperless lodging on the 
open prairie, in the rain, and wet clothes for a pack ; but even 
this, or worse, was the experience of other settlers of that country, 
and what had been endured might be again. With this hope he 
comforted himself, but ere he retired to rest he sought the most 
elevated spot he had marked by the declining light, determined to 
be as near heaven as possible, provided he should hatfe to go up 
before morning, and provided heaven was up from earth. When 
he reached the summit of this elevation, and cast his eyes around 
in the darkness, behold, a light-house appeared in the distance. 
After assuring himself that it was not an ignis fatuus, and com- 
passing in his head the line to it, he set out in pursuit. It was a 
long, wet, dark, tedious, and lonesome way, but at the end he 
found the house that had the light, and the rough voice of its hardy 
pioneer owner welcomed him in, and listened to his story as he 
dried his clothes by the renewed fire. When the traveller had 
told his story, the settler informed him that he had been one year 
on Hart prairie, where he now lived, breaking sod, raising corn, 
and shooting deer and grouse ; and that the claim he was search- 
ing for lay nine miles distant, and the old man was on it doing 
well. The news gladdened the heart of the Lone One. A short 
sleep, and short breakfast, and short price, were all soon despatched, 



80 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

and the path pursued to the point of destination. A corn- 
planter, on the prairie, directed the traveller to the claim he in- 
quired for, but informed him his friend had gone from home, and 
might not return till the morrow. He sought the ten-by-twelve 
shanty, and soon unfastened its door, took possession, and dili- 
gently searched for food. Bread he could not find ; but maple- 
sugar, and honey, and part of a ham of pork, he found ; and the 
beautiful brook, which played along its narrow channel by the 
door, was lined with cowslips. Soon he had the tea-kettle (the 
only article he could find that was suitable) full of the stems and 
flowers, boiling, over a renewed fire, in the rude fireplace. The boiled 
ham, salted greens, and honey-comb, made him the best dinner and 
supper he had eaten for many years. It was a beautiful day, and 
a beautiful place, such as only those who have been reared at hard 
work, among rocks, and stumps, and hills, and swamps, can appre- 
ciate ; and only those whose souls are inspired by the beauties of 
nature, and her wild-flowers, and magnificent landscapes, can enjoy. 
When he had enjoyed all his tired body would allow, and the 
curtain of night had dropped down over the scene, he cradled in 
the bunk or berth that was roped up on the side of the shanty, 
about six feet long by two feet wide, in which were some parts of 
a bed. The tired body and worried mind were both soon wrapped 
in repose ; and the " ocean of dreams without a sound " was not 
disturbed until long after the sun had begun shining on the beau- 
tiful prairie, awakening its songsters, foliage, and flowers. Sud- 
denly the door opened ; and, aroused, the Lone One opened his 
eyes to meet the face of his old friend, whose astonishment and 
curiosity could not be satisfied till long after the cake was baked, 
and meat cooked, and tea made, and the breakfast despatched. 
Sad news soon spread its terrible shade over the Lone One, as he 
learned that the vessel on which their goods were shipped had been 
wrecked, and his goods all lost. What next? Dark, darker, 
darkest prospect, what next ? Surely it is true that misfortunes 
seldom come single ; but once it was so, — when the Lone One 
was born. The claim-and-shanty Prince was somewhat the senior 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 81 

of the orphan. His female partner for life had left him in Ver- 
mont, and gone off with some other person to some other place, 
— they called it dying ; and as she left her body a corpse, they 
buried that, and never inquired after her more. The daughters 
were scattered out to live ; and the old man, poor and lonely, had 
wandered westward, where, at Monroe, he made the acquaintance 
of the Lone One ; and they soon felt the truth of the old adage, 
" A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind." But he made his 
fortune in this claim, and ripened his years in wealth, but de- 
clined in loneliness, for his life was marked with troubles for which 
he was not accountable. His kind heart prompted him to offer 
all he could of assistance. He proposed to get an ox-team, to 
bring the family and effects to the prairie, and to this little shanty, 
and there make a common home, until they could do better. But 
the Lone One could not consent to bring the feeble mother and 
child to such a place and condition, and in such a manner. He 
declined the kind offer, and, with a sad heart, paced slowly back 
the winding way to the partner's quarters, to sadden the heart of 
the mother with the news of their loss, and to gladden the face of 
the child, who had no care about it. He informed the fat old 
householder (he could not be called a landlord, for he owned no 
land, and was anything but a lord) that he could not pay the board 
charges more than a week without some means of obtainiDg money 
to do it with, and received, in return, notice to leave, as he must 
have the room for those who could pay. After much effort, he 
obtained a single room on the upper floor of an unfinished house ; 
hired an old cook-stove for one dollar per month ; and, with the 
few articles they had brought with them, they tried to "keep 
house ; " scraped up all the pocket-pieces of coin and little sav- 
ings, and purchased a barrel of flour and a few indisp en sables ; 
placed the bed on the floor, in one corner of the room, the stove 
in another corner, and the flour-barrel in another ; and the two 
chairs and table brought with them, with the bureau, — a gift of 
the red-coat brother, — made up the furniture of the large room. 
Almost the only consolation of the establishment was the barrel 



82 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

of flour, which they hoped would last until some way should be 
opened to get more ; but hopes are often vain, and " the way of 
the transgressor is hard ; " and they had transgressed in getting 
married before their time, and again in having a child, doubly 
premature; and they had also found the Bible told a lie when it 
said the sin of ignorance was winked at. They found it was pun- 
ished as severely as any. With this condition for a home, he sal- 
lied forth in search of employment, and occasionally, but seldom, 
found a short job for which he could obtain some kind of pay, but 
never money, and seldom anything to feed his family ; but, as he 
needed almost everything, any kind of pay was acceptable, and- 
any kind of food desirable. When he could obtain labor, he could 
get eight or ten York shillings per day in something at the own- 
er's prices ; but bread and butter, and all such necessaries, were 
cash articles, and at prices something in this line : Flour went up 
during the season from ten to sixteen dollars per barrel, butter to 
fifty cents per pound, potatoes to one dollar and fifty cents per 
bushel, and other articles in proportion. One day in the month 
for stove-rent, and five more for room-rent, and Sundays to get up 
wood, used up each their share of time ; and time was his only 
estate. Only a small portion of the remainder could he find em- 
ployment with any kind of pay. These were the trial-days of life, 
most severe of all in his experience, because others depended on 
him. What to do, or how to avoid starvation-corners, which he 
saw they were approaching at the end of the flour-barrel, he knew 
not. He wrote one or two letters to old acquaintances, soliciting 
aid, and one to the magistrate with whom he had left store ac- 
counts amounting to two or three hundred dollars. From him he 
received answer that enough could not be collected to pay costs, 
so terribly severe were the monetary affairs. This was the last he 
ever inquired after the accounts. From the other friends he never 
heard, and probably it was well ; for twenty -five cents postage was 
more than he could afford to pay for a letter, and that was the 
price of postage. 

There was one other hope on which they depended some. They 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 83 

had brought with them an assortment of garden-seeds. He had 
procured a piece of ground, highly recommended by its owner, and 
labored days and nights, and Sundays, when no pay-labor could be 
obtained, and planted the seeds and watched them spring up, and 
waited with much anxiety the signs of food from that source. But 
" storm after storm hangs dark o'er the way." Late in June 
came excessive rains and cold winds, and every plant of his gar- 
den, except the weeds, was drowned or destroyed ; and this car- 
ried more sorrow to the lone heart. Eeader, do you think he had 
reason to thank God for life, and ask his blessing on every meal, 
and to believe him a God of love, with especial care of his chil- 
dren ? Or, was he one of the adversary's children ? If so, he 
should pray to the devil, for he certainly ought to serve and obey 
his parent, if any being, until his powers were equal to the 
parent ; then he should be free. But not free to serve his devil- 
father's worst enemy. A life of sorrow, toil, poverty, and trouble, 
seemed now before him ; yet, with untiring energy, he devoted 
himself to the duty of supporting those dependent on him. If he 
had been the wicked man which sectarian Christians said he was, 
and many of them would have made him to be, if they could, he 
might have run away, and left his dependent wife and child ; but 
the wicked world could not make him wicked, with all its persecu- 
tions, for his soul was " above, while in, the world." Now he 
needed the angel's voice which whispered to the poet : 

" Hope on ! How oft the darkest night 
Precedes the fairest day ! 
0, guard thy soul from Sorrow's blight ! 
Clouds may obscure the Day-god's light, 
But he will shine again as bright 
When they have passed away. 

" Hope on ! Though Disappointment's wing 
Above thy path may soar, — 
Though Slander drive her rankling sting, — 
Though Malice all her venom bring, — 
Though festering darts detraction fling, — 
Still must the storm pass o'er. 



84 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

" If slave to Poverty thou art. 

Bear bravely with thy lot ; 
Though keen her galling chains may smart, 
Strive still to rend their links apart ! 
Hope on ! for the despairing heart 

God surely loveth not. 

" Hope on, hope on, though drear and dark 
Thy future may appear ! 
The sailor in his storm-tossed bark 
Still guides the helm, and hopes to mark. 
Amid the gloom, some beacon-spark 
His dangerous way to cheer. 

" Though wealth take wings, or friends forsake, 

Be not by grief oppressed ; 
Stern winter binds with ice the lake, 
Bat genial spring its bonds shall break. 
Hope on ! A firmer purpose take, 

And leave to God the rest." 

We have been more particular in this part of our narrative, 
because the Lone One was nearing, and now about to pass, the peri- 
helion of his life-orbit, in which he and his family were nearly con- 
sumed by the devouring elements of conflict and antagonism which 
make up the life of competition in civilization. How deeply little 
incidents stamp themselves on the memory-canvas when they occur 
in the trial-hours of life ! The long and heated days of July 
were slowly passing. The flour was fast lowering in the barrel, 
being almost the only food. The search for labor was often in 
vain, and, when found, was only of the hardest kind, with poorest 
pay, as is the custom in our Christian society, where even religion 
is inverted. 

Again the tightening cords of oppression were to be twisted, 
and the house-owner notified the tenant to vacate the room, for he 
was to open a tavern in a few days, and should need the rooms. 
After much effort and long searching, he obtained a claim-shanty 
from a Canada land speculator, who, with little money and much 
skill, had secured a claim-title to a portion of what is now the 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 85 

city of Kenosha, which finally changed his condition from poverty 
to riches, and became a complete stumbling-block to the develop- 
ment of his only son. This claim-shanty, for which the Lone 
One was to pay one day's labor each week as rent, had a hole in 
the ground for a foundation and cellar, and one room about twelve 
feet square, with one window and one door, and a rude ladder 
for stairs to lead up to the chamber with its loose floor, and a roof 
so near that your head was ever in danger of contact with the 
projecting nails. 

A few loads on the wheelbarrow completed the moving of all 
but the stove. This the wealthy owner could not afford to let at 
one dollar per month any longer, for it would then sell for near 
twenty dollars ; but the Devil provides for his infidel children, in 
such trials, about as well as God does for his~-Christians, and the 
stove-place was supplied by one which was purchased of a keen, 
speculating trader, who agreed to take hay for the pay ; and as 
the United States had plenty of grass near by the village, the 
cautious child of poverty dared to promise the pay, for the United 
States owed him for fighting service of his father. 

He had fairly settled in his new residence, and paid several 
weeks' rent, always boarding himself (for in those times board was 
an essential item in all contracts for laborers, and the laborers 
seldom got a meal from the employers), when the flour-barrel was 
empty, and the stove-owner called for his pay to the amount of 
twenty-five dollars, which could not be paid by less than twenty 
or twenty-five days' labor in good hay-making weather. Reader, 
what would you have done? — Pray? — what for? — to whom? — 
would he answer? — how? True, he could collect some kinds 
of food to prevent starving, if his time was at his own disposal ; 
but now five or six weeks must be devoted to paying for the stove. 
But, " What shall ive eat?" said a female voice. — "Let's take 
account of stock," replied the Lone One. — " Where shall we be- 
gin? " said the woman of tears to the man of sorrows. — " With 
the beans." — "Enough for three or four meals." — "Salt." — 
" Half a peck." — " Good supply, that. Let 's ask a blessing 



86 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

over it," said he, trying to cheer up her heart. — " 0, don't be too 
sacrilegious ! Maybe some Christian will help us, if you don't scare 
them off." — " Christian! I should like to see one, this side of 
the land where no Christians thirst for gold." — " Well, what 
next?"— "Tea." — " The tea, and coffee, and sugar, which we 
brought with us, are all nearly out, — may last two weeks. But 
we cannot have any more milk of K.'s folks; so your coffee will 
not be very palatable. Spices and such things we have some, but 
no use for them. There is pork enough for you three or four 
meals, and rice enough for Bob about a week, and that 's all." 

She had not eaten meat nor drank coffee for some years, and 
never did after she began to live this narrative, and this was one 
cause of social inharmony. Physically she was his superior in 
purity and refinement, her body being above that excited and irri- 
table condition in which his was kept by coffee, pork, and tobacco ; 
for, like all who use tobacco, he could manage to keep a supply 
of the filthy weed, however poorly he lived. Smoking he thought 
did help to drown trouble, but little did he think it only helped to 
make it. " What can I eat? If I eat Bob's rice, it will not last 
us but two or three days, and then he '11 starve, for you know he 
cannot eat anything but bread and rice." Potatoes had been one 
dollar and fifty cents per bushel, and had not found their way 
often into this family. " Well, that 's all ; now what shall we do ? " 
" Flour is sixteen dollars per barrel, and they will not sell less than 
a barrel ; and if they would, we have no money, and I could not 
get a pound of flour nor a dollar of money for labor, and I must 
get up the hay for that stove, now, or give up the stove." — "Well, 
if we have nothing to cook, we shali not want the stove long." 

His labor had already supplied him with haying-tools and a 
small note of ten or twelve dollars, against a good man, payable 
in produce after harvest. This he vainly tried to exchange for 
flour or meal, and finally for other food ; but all efforts failed, till 
he went to the debtor and told him his situation, and asked advice. 
The man was his friend, and sympathized with him ; he was him- 
self poor, but had a good claim, and improvements, and a fair 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 87 

prospect of competence, if not of wealth. He had a field of po- 
tatoes planted early, and quite forward, and he gave the Lone 
One permission to use them as soon as they would answer to dig 
and measure, as he wanted them, and pay the market price, on the 
note. On examining them, he found they were about half grown, 
and would answer to eat with salt (not butter, for butter was a 
luxury for the few). 

" Another streak of good luck," said he, as he landed the peck 
of half-grown potatoes on the floor. " You see Providence always 
provides for us. Ought we not to thank Providence now?" — 
" Perhaps we ought ; it might be worse with us than it is ; very 
likely some people suffer more than we do." — " Well, then, I 
suppose they have more reason to be thankful ; but I wish I was 
Providence a little while. I 'd make everybody happy, and have 
one jubilee of joy and thanksgiving ; but this Christian Provi- 
dence seems to have no pity for the poor and suffering part of our 
race." — " We shall not starve, shall we ? But I know these will 
make me sick, and I dare not give them to Bob to eat, for you 
know we have eat nothing but bread so long, and this hot weather 
I fear we shall all be sick." — "No, we shall not be sick; that 
terrible time we had on the lakes will save us this year from more 
sickness." — " Well, maybe so, but I will save the rice for Bob, 
and give him potatoes once or twice a day." — " Salt them well, 
and we can all stand it till some change betters our condition ; 
then we will thank Providence, or anybody else that helps us." — 
" You '11 forget it, then ; for you never think much about Provi- 
dence, except when we are in trouble." — "That is the time I 
need his help, if ever ; for ' a friend in need is a friend indeed,' 
and certainly we are in need, and now I should like to see some 
of the kindness the Christians tell so much about." — "But that 
only comes to Christians." — " 0, I thought He was no respecter 
of persons. I cannot be a Christian, but I might be a hypocrite, 
and pretend it ; but I could not cheat Providence, I suppose, and 
I guess that is the reason He neglects so many who pretend to be 
Christians." — " Well, I don't view these things as I used to, but 



88 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

I know mother would think we were dreadful wicked, and that 
God would not bless us in our sins." — "Would she think Him 
angry ? " — " Perhaps so, but she is honest in her belief." — " Of 
course, but that does not make it true. Well, if he is angry at me, 
I cannot help it. I guess he will not strike me dead ; and, if he 
does, I do not care, if he will only take care of you and Bob." 
— " Don't talk so ; let 's go to sleep." 

The bed, the stove, the table, and two chairs, with a stool or 
two for themselves, when they had visitors, made up the furniture, 
with a packing-box made into a cupboard. The last effort to 
obtain flour had failed, by reporting honestly his condition, and 
offering any property he possessed (except his wife, for the law, 
or priest, made him have property in her), and any amount of 
labor, or money when he could obtain it. He only received in 
reply, " Our flour is sold on commission, and only by the barrel, 
sir; we can't accommodate you." Day after day, week after 
week, the morning and evening meals were made up for the family 
of the new potatoes boiled and well salted, and sometimes accom- 
panied by little turnips, greens, &c. The same article was car- 
ried to the hay -field for his dinner, to which he walked near three 
miles to his daily toil, and returned at night weary and lonely, 
but encouraged, for he was paying for the stove, and should soon 
own it ; and with this bright prospect he tried to encourage his 
wife, and she tried to enjoy it with him. But poverty was a 
severe trial for her, and this her first trial, but not his first. 

Many will say he should have avoided this. So he should. But, 
" only think if yours had been like his, a cheerless life," how 
could you have known the dangerous way to steer better than he 
did? But the severest and most touching trial of poverty had 
now arrived and taken lodgings with the Lone One. " Behold 
me — I am Famine." The rice was exhausted, and the potatoes 
did make the feeble child sick, and his pale and quivering lip, 
accompanied by the imploring look of a keen bright eye full of 
tears, morning and evening, would entreatingly beg of the father, 
" papa, — cake, cake ! " as the significant finger would point to the 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 89 

cupboard. The salt and potatoes, forced down by hunger, gave 
him a summer complaint, and his appetite rebelled against the • 
only food his parents had to give him. The tears of the parents 
could not explain to the child why he could not have bread ; but 
the mother's heart, under the constant and imploring entreaty of 
her child, gave up the last spark of pride for the time, and she 
went to the claim-owner and begged for the child bread. And 
another kind lady, the feeble but beloved wife of another claim- 
holder, learned the condition of this child, and (she loved chil- 
dren, but had none) she sent it a little milk almost every day ; 
and still another lady, of the house where they had lived, had 
sympathy (and needed it too almost as much as this poor mother), 
and sent a little flour and butter, and thus they, or rather the 
boy, was a charity student in a civilized world of experience. 

The weeks passed by, the potatoes grew better, the stove was 
paid for, and they rejoiced over the acquisition of this necessary 
article. Haying-time lasted till late in autumn, and the Lone 
One cut more than fifty tons of hay, which, after paying for the 
stove, the rest was used to obtain other articles of necessity or 
use, and usually brought him about one and a half or two dollars 
per ton on the meadow when ready to load on wagons. He could 
usually put up a ton in a good fair day, and walk to and from 
the meadow owned by God, of whom United States was the agent 
in possession, with a kind of squatter-claim agent under him ; and 
they managed, I believe, at last, to cheat God entirely out of the 
title, and got full ownership themselves, without a title from Him. 
Before haying was over the harvesting began. Grain yielded 
well, and flour was reduced in price and plenty, and the family 
were supplied a good share of the time with bread for labor 
or other exchange. But money was still almost out of the 
market. This life-trial was borne by the wife and mother with a 
patience and fortitude well worthy her Xew England ancestry, 
which proved that the stories of her grandmother's trials and 
hardships had not been told her in vain. She did not spend 
her time murmuring or fault-finding, but patiently waited and 
8* 



90 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

labored for a better condition, seeking and sometimes finding 
some light work she could perform for others when she had none 
for her own family. The Lone One had been schooled in poverty, 
and of course could bear it ; for he had himself cried to a poor 
mother for bread and cake when her scanty pay could not furnish 
it, and when so few among those abundantly able would employ a 
woman who had a child to feed. The cough and disease seemed 
to relax their hold on the wife, in this hard trial, as they did in 
several others. She seemed to beat the waves of misfortune with 
increasing force. Every dark cloud must pass along; every 
darker night must yield to dawn ; each tightening grip of poverty 
or hunger must relax, and let the sufferer feed at last on earthly 
or celestial food. These were the days when small favors were 
thankfully received; and a few such were recorded then, not 
soon to be forgotten ; and perhaps such trials are to some extent 
necessary to enable us to fully appreciate the kindnesses of life. 

" . . . In youth's unclouded morn, 
We gaze on friendship as a graceful flower, 
And win it for our pleasure or our pride ; 
But when the stern realities of life 
Do clip the wings of fancy, and cold storms 
Rack the worn cordage of the heart, it breathes 
A healing essence, and a strengthening charm, 
Next to the hope of heaven. ' ' 

" For when the power of imparting joy 
Is equal to the will, the human soul 
Requires no other heaven." 

Section VI. 

ANOTHER TURN. 

Did you hear " old Satan, that arch traitor who rules the 
burning lake," say, " Turn the spit, Jack," and give the Lone 
One another change ? Did you ever read the story about his 
chat with God, which occurred on the occasion of one of his visits 
to the kingdom with the saints, about one servant of God, called 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 91 

Job, and what followed ? That accounts for the introduction of 
boils and whirlwinds, if not for all other evils that afflict us " to 
this day." You will find it in the Jewish classics. October 
browned the autumn leaves, and the frosts changed the greens of 
the earth to brown ; the prairie-fires were pipe-lighted on many 
of the rolls of the rolling prairies. The hole in the earth under 
the shanty of the Lone One was well filled with potatoes, and tur- 
nips, and cabbage, and pumpkins, and the garret had corn and 
dried pumpkin. The poor family were congratulating themselves 
on the prospect of wintering without starving, when, on a cold 
November morning, the stern old Cannuck owner came in and told 
them he was sorry to disturb them, but he had sold the shanty to 
a man from Chicago, who had gone after his family, and would be 
there in a week to take possession, and they must be out of the 
way. 0, how little those families who have homes of their own 
know of this terrible infliction — being turned out of homes, with 
no money to hire others, and no others to hire, both of which 
evils were now realized. Reader, did you ever disturb a little 
animal with its winter supply of food, and rob it of all its depend- 
ence ? If you have, an experience like this would prevent you 
from ever doing it again ; and by it you may learn why the Lone 
One ever after, if not before, had such a sacred regard for the 
homes of the poor, both of man and beast. 

" Man was born into the world poor, naked, and bare ; 
And his progress all through it is trouble and care ; 
And his exit from out it is no one knows where ; 
But, if well he does here, J t will be well with him there ; 
And no more could I tell you by preaching a year. ' ' 

No other wigwam could be found unoccupied in all the region 
round about, and the family, whom poverty had made friendless, 
were compelled to engage board at the house where they once 
occupied a room. The little store of eatables was sold for enough 
to pay for three or four weeks' board ; and there, in prospect, was 
again the end of the fortune-rope. For the best season of labor 



92 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

was at a close, and nearly all the settlers lived during winter, and 
most of them the whole year round, by speculating on lots, and 
prospects, and on one another. In this the victim of poverty 
could not engage ; for he was too cautious to even purchase on 
long credit a claim to one or more lots in the village, which he 
might safely have done, had he known the prospects of the place. 
" Another streak of good luck ! " exclaimed he to his mate, as he 
came in, one day. " I have turned pedagogue, and engaged to 
teach the village school, for which I shall receive enough to pay 
our board." This was secured by the aid of the landlord, who no 
doubt found interest and charity combined. The first schools in 
a newly-settled country are usually the rudest and worst to teach ; 
not requiring in teachers much education, but much patience, and 
more mental discipline, self-control, and power to control others. 
In this school the preceding teachers had allowed the larger boys 
to govern themselves, and mostly the school also ; but the new 
teacher determined to have order and discipline such as he had 
been accustomed to see in New England, and he began with the 
largest and most unruly, who were not accustomed to being con- 
trolled at home or in school, and of course rebelled at this author- 
ity, entered complaints that he was too strict, did not pray in 
school, nor make them read in the Bible. The ready tongues of 
two or three pious mothers and their unruly boys soon made a 
commotion ; and although the trustees sustained him, and wished 
him to continue, he declined and left the school, rather than have 
two or three large boys who needed most the school taken out by 
their pious mothers. This was the first and last time he ever 
found himself opposed by females, and even some of these became 
afterwards his warm friends, when he had gained the public title 
of Ladies' Advocate ; for he was organically and instinctively 
a " ladies' man," and became more and more so as his life opened 
and ripened, and in riper years so much so as to excite the jeal- 
ousy and envy of many sensual and selfish minds, and array them 
against him as enemies, because the ladies loved or esteemed him 
more than themselves. 






LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 93 

The snow-storms had sprinkled the frozen flakes over the prai- 
ries. Thirty-eight was in his dotage ; had made his will, and was 
about to depart to the region of the " home-wind," and be suc- 
ceeded by his next of kin in numerical order. All day, with rifle, 
had the Lone One wandered o'er hill and valley, in pursuit of 
deer, with only tracks for game, when cold and hunger and 
approaching night bade him return home. It was far away. 
Snows were troublesome to his weary limbs, the mercury was 
falling, and darkness stealing over the earth, as drowsiness was 
over his brain ; but caution was aroused, and informed the intellect 
that it was the signal of death. Pauguk was looking at him, but 
he was not ready to go to the " Islands of the Blessed," and leave 
a widow and orphan destitute, and among strangers. By extraor- 
linary efforts, by rubbing his face and limbs with snow, he at length 
did succeed in reaching home, where the warm room soon brought 
fainting and intense suffering, from which, by the aid of brandy and 
friction mixed, he at last recovered, and then realized more fully 
the near approach he had made to " death's door." The experi- 
ence of that day lasted until he left the school of hunters, which 
occurred a few years after, when his soul had become too sensi- 
tive to murder such animals as are usually killed for game ; and 
then he was glad his history had never been stained by the murder 
of a single deer, although the blood of much other game cried from 
the ground against him, as Abel's did against Cain. 

In the midst of the holidays the stove and scanty furniture were 
loaded on a wagon, and, with their legal owner, carted about three 
miles from the village, into the thick wood, and landed in an old, 
dirty log-house, near a saw-mill with a broken dam. The team 
returned, and left the owner to watch all night with the goods and 
the ghosts of the departed former occupants. The rats, probably 
supperless as the intruder, seemed anxious to pry into the new 
furniture, and had to be often silenced by the voice or tread of the 
watcher. He had no lights, and the teamster could not stay to 
assist in putting up the stove. It was one of those long nights 
that seem almost endless, when we are hungry, cold, sleepless, and 



94 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

alone, in the dark. Even the rats were better than no company, 
especially when " a fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind." Next 
day the team returned with the rest of the family, and the old- 
bachelor partner, and a supply of provisions advanced to the part- 
ners on a job of cutting saw-logs for the mill, which they were to 
repair and run on shares, when it should thaw out. As this home 
was the centre of some important events in the life-history, and the 
birth-place of an only daughter, now grown to womanhood and a 
classical scholar, I should like to present the reader a picture of 
it ; but my book must go into market without pictures. It was 
made of logs, and capacious, with only one good thing about it — 
a good roof. It had two windows, but needed none for light or 
air, until after the partners thawed the mud and plastered the 
cracks on the outside. The floor was easily taken up at any time, 
to recover the tongs, and spoons, and feet, which Bob often dropped 
through it ; and also to drive out the rats, which for a time dis- 
puted possession of the basement. The chamber was made to 
sleep in, or on; and if you wished to keep the occupants up there, 
you could easily take the ladder down. The bachelor partner was 
a joiner, and the house was soon " fixed up," and housekeeping 
under way. 

The house stood on an elevated ground, and overlooked the 
mill and pond, — when there was one, — with a garden and small 
meadow in the rear, where the woods had been driven back. A 
small clearing on the rich bottom-land below was also used for 
garden and corn. On these grounds, the garden, allowed with 
the tenement, furnished abundant pay for the labor bestowed on it 
by the Lone One for the two seasons he resided there. Day after 
day the bachelor, and he who ought to have been one, started 
early, carried dinner, and returned late, as they cut and counted 
saw-logs ; but it paid well, for they could earn near three dollars 
per day, and, as they shared equally in expenses, they could save 
near one dollar per day each. Bat the job was short, and soon 
came warm days, and work on the mill, etc. 

" Shall we damn the dam to-day ? " said the Frenchman, Louis, 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 95 

who, with Peter, boarded at the house several weeks while they 
chopped cord- wood, except when Peter eat coon-meat for break- 
fast, and went up a tree to sleep. 

" Yes, damn the dam ! " said the bachelor, as breach after 
breach was made and repaired, and the mill running about one 
day in four or six. A few weeks were sufficient to satisfy the 
bachelor, for he had no pets to cry for bread, and he proposed to 
take his share of the pay for chopping, and " put out ; " and so he 
did, and that was the last and least they saw of him, for he went 
to the prairie-land of Indiana, took a wife, and engaged in 
raising babies. Louis and Peter also departed for their Canada 
home ; the stream dried up, and the never-lasting dam staid, when 
the water was gone, as they fixed it. 

During the little jobs of sawing he secured in his share some lum- 
ber for a small house, and bargained for a lot in the village, — about 
half .an acre of land, — and agreed to pay in lumber. The good 
man of whom he purchased lengthened out the time for payment, 
and only asked for promises, and interest yearly, till it could be 
paid. The summer crowded along, and the Lone One often trav- 
elled two or three miles to do his day's work, and back at night, to 
the home where the mate was passing terrible days of trial and 
suffering, watched and aided by an excellent little French woman, 
who had moved into a small frame-house near by the log one, and 
owned by the mill-owners also, but which the Lone One was too 
poor to obtain with the mill ; for the greater our necessities, 
the less favored we are. The long, hot days had not all passed, 
when the physician had to be called, and the maid hired, and the 
baby cried. Another unwelcome intruder, to be fed and clothed 
from the scanty fare. 0, the ignorance of poor, and rich, hus- 
bands and wives, in this bigoted Christian land! It is deplora- 
ble ! Not half, or even one fourth, of the babes are distributed 
where they are needed and desired ; and yet enlightened Christians 
are continually prating about God's mysterious providences in 
such matters, as if God had more to do with it than we have, 
when the parties are priest-tied. Several works recently pub- 



96 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

listed by H. C. Wright, T. L. Nichols, A. J. Davis, Fowlers, etc., 
will do more to remove suffering, and enlighten minds on the most 
important subject of this life, than all the religious books of the last 
half-century ; and every family too poor to purchase any book should 
apply for a Bible to the Society, and exchange it for Davis's fourth 
volume of Harmonia, or H. C. Wright on marriage and parentage. 
If there could be a society formed to supply these and other 
works of a kindred nature to every family, and especially every 
newly-married couple, it would do thrice the good of any Bible 
Society, and the beneficial effects would be at once felt and last- 
ing. But we must return to the cabin — not to live, " thank the 
stars." 

The mother slowly recovered, the child was well, and the poor 
little sickly boy — 0, reader ! could you once have a look at, or 
picture of, that family, and this object of pity ! " There," said 
she, " I hope now we are done raisin' babies." The fall winds and 
rains came, and the mill did run some, but the dam run more, and 
trial after trial came backing down, until one of the owners really 
believed it was bewitched ; but he was pious, and afterward be- 
came a preacher, so he had a right to believe in witches. Winter 
came slowly along, and the garden crops, and day wages, and the 
little lumber, all economically appropriated, enabled the poor fam- 
ily to live until spring brought the fish in the stream, and more 
water and work on the dam. In the deep cold winter the feeble 
boy came near a change of homes, one severe cold night, which 
greatly cooled after bedtime. He was bedded, as usual, on his 
sacking creek, on the opposite side of the room from his parents, 
with perhaps two or three thicknesses of quilt under and over 
him. Toward morning, one or both the parents were awakened by 
some unseen, unheard agency, and directed to the noiseless boy. 
The father was soon by the boy. He was cold, and not a warm 
spot in the clothes where he lay, nor on his body, save about the 
vitals. He was instantly transferred to the other bed, and after a 
long time became warm, and awakened ; but there was never a 
doubt in the parents' minds that he would have been borne away 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 97 

in the sleep to the land, or world, of dead children, but for the 
agency that awakened them. One notice of this kind was sufficient 
for the blended life-line of the family. Thirty-nine went noise- 
lessly out, and Forty — of hard cider notoriety — came noiselessly 
into power. At the cabin the hard could be found, but not any 
cider. Wisconsin was a minor, and had no vote ; she raised no 
cider, and had no need to import any. They survived the frosts 
and sufferings of the winter, and came out, as usual, " spring poor.*' 
It was probably the poverty and hard times that kept the wife 
alive ; for she was too poor to die, and they were too poor to have 
a funeral, and fate designed they should each of them have one, 
and a meeting of real friends, not a few, on such occasions. One 
principle of philosophy always bore her up, namely, " All that is, 
is for the best." 

Again, in the spring of Forty, the snows and rains run both mill 
and dam, but, by often working eighteen hours out of each day, he 
had sawed lumber enough to fence his lot, and sufficient for a 
small house, of such kinds as grew in that forest where there 
were no pines or hemlocks, and had paid nearly half the price of 
the lot. Every such little success encouraged him to renewed 
action. Again the garden was planted and flourished, and again 
work for wages on the dam, and elsewhere, supplied the family 
scantily with food and clothes ; for by this time even the wedding 
clothes were worn out, with nearly all of the good supply brought 
with them. 

The elder sister, with her consumptive husband, had by that 
time arrived from Michigan, and also a box of goods from the 
mother of the sister, whose liberality was fully equal to her 
ability. At the close of the fall term, the Lone One resolved 
to leave the mill and cabin, and seek some other home. Half- 
way to the village was a pious Methodist farmer, for whom he 
often labored, and who was scrupulously honest, for he believed in 
hell, and in his religion, and feared both God and the devil. The 
old man lived and raised his large family in a log cabin, but had 
a large farm and plenty of provision. He had put up a wagon- 
9 



98 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

house, with, large doors in the cold end, that faced the home of 
the west wind. This he proposed to patch with boards on the out- 
side, and with papers inside, put up a ladder for stairs, and take 
them in as tenants, till they could do better. So they did, and 
did better as soon as possible, but not till a year had been spent 
there as a home, in, not quite the hog-pen, but wagon-house. It 
was while they lived in this house that the family reared, fattened, 
and slaughtered the one, and the only one hog they ever did or 
ever will feed or own. 

This was not the only event of importance that occurred at the 
wagon-house station, for here in '41, about two years after the 
birth of the daughter, God, or somebody else, sent along the 
doctor, and, probably by mistake, left a boy at the wagon-house ; 
but this fine boy was such an improvement on the other that she 
was not very sorry, for everybody praised this boy, but did not 
consider the other worth praising. This summer a schooner bore 
the Lone One down the lake into Green Bay, and to the Escanaba 
River, where for two months he made pine boards, and returned with 
his fifty dollars wages, and with it paid for his lot, and received the 
first title he ever had to a spot on his Heavenly Father's earth, 
where he could set his foot in his own right. His hopes were now 
high with the prospect of a home for his wife and babes, and as 
many more as God should please to send ; for they came with- 
out prayers or solicitation to this, as they do to most poor homes. 
But, not yet, said a silent voice. " Turn the spit, Jack." 

" Pain's furnace heat within me quivers, 
God's breath upon the flame doth blow, 
And all my heart in anguish shivers, 

And trembles at the fiery glow ; 
And yet I whisper, As God will, 
And in his hottest fire hold still. 

" He comes and lays my heart, all heated, 
On the hard anvil, minded so 
Into his own fair shape to beat it, 

With his great hammer, blow on blow ; 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 99 

And yet I whisper, As God will, 
And at his heaviest blows hold still ! 

" Why should I murmur ? — for the sorrow 

Thus only longer-lived will be ; 
Its end may come, and will to-morrow, 

When God has done his work in me ; 
So I say, trusting, As God will, 
And, trusting to the end, hold still." 

Two physicians in constant attendance, — seven of the nine- 
family in the log cabin of the Methodist sick ; the wife- 
mother given up by the family as the victim of death, and, with 
terrible groans and screams of fear, and repulsion of the change, 
which need not have taken place but for fate and friends, she 
crosses over to the other shore, and the others are pronounced safe ; 
for death had gone with his unwilling Methodist victim, amid 
groans and shouts of the preacher, enough to disgust the savages. 

But let us turn to the wagon -house, for the doctors also called 
in there every day. A raging fever held the body of the infidel 
husband fast to the couch, and the same terrible gripe was also on 
the elder boy, and the younger boy shook daily with ague, and 
cried piteously to the feeble mother and little two-years-old sister. 
All were in one room, and that a wagon-house, in the autumn of 
the year. The preacher did not come in, — he was not invited; but 
the doctors said the boys were safe, but the father's case very 
doubtful. On the day of the funeral, the husband of the body 
(for he was never the husband of her spirit, for he had a wife 
before and after her) said there was no hope of the Lone One 
ever recovering, and obtained from the physician an approval of 
his opinion ; and the echo soon reached, in the wife's whisper and 
tear, the heart of the sick man, and he well knew the desire of 
his friend for a death-bed conversion, as better than none. 
Calmly, and almost smilingly, he whispered, " No, I shall not 
die ; but, if I should, I do not want any howling priest, nor any 
of that kind of religion which makes death so terrible." — "I hope 
you will not die such a terrible death as she did;" and she was 



100 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

one of the best women they had ever met, and beloved by all who 
knew her. — " No, I can die as quietly as I could go to sleep, 
if my time has come, and my work is done ; but it is not, and I can- 
not go." Now, at the very time when most needed, came the 
kind sister whose magnetic powers had once saved him from death ; 
and a few hours of her magnetic influence, unconsciously bestowed 
on him, carried him beyond danger, and astonished even the doc- 
tors, who could not tell what, or which, of their medicines had thus 
wonderfully saved his life; but surely it was not the calomel, for 
that, by his request, had been left out, by his agreeing to run the 
risk of recovery by other remedies. The son was soon well, but 
slowly the father recovered strength enough to shake with ague 
each alternate day, and hear the friends anticipate an all-winter 
business of it. What a prospect for winter ! It seemed impos- 
sible to keep all the babies from freezing, in that wagon-house, 
through the approaching winter. True, the lumber for a little 
house was already on his lot in the village ; but he had no means 
to procure other articles and labor for the house, and was evea 
now in debt for provisions, for now he had a little credit at the 
stores, and had been obliged to use it for flour, &c. Then there 
were the physicians to be paid. One thing was sure — if he could 
not work during the winter, both the lumber and lot would have to 
go, and thus all the struggles of near four years to secure a home 
would be in vain, and his future prospects darker than those of the 
past. Thus had these prospects been changed by the sickness — 
or the fever — which seems a terrible scourge to the poor, but 
sometimes a blessing to the rich, and perhaps to all. 

" The cloud which bursts with thunder 

Slakes our thirsty souls with rain ; 

The blow most dreaded falls to break 

From off our limbs a chain ; 
And wrongs of man to man but make 
. The love of God more plain; 
As through the shadowy lens of even 
The eye looks farthest into heaven. 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 101 

On gleams of star, and depths of blue, 
The glowing sunshine never knew." 

With a resolution worthy a better fate, he went to the village, 
hired his board with a family who had once been poor, but could 
now afford to trust him, where the good living, and the medicine 
selected by himself, with constant labor on his house, soon restored 
him to health. The house, about sixteen by twenty-six, one room 
high, was, by the aid of the old farmer a few days, up, enclosed, shin- 
gled, and floored, and with a little more store credit, lathed, plas- 
tered (all of which he did himself), and ready to move in ; and the 
farmer's team soon brought them to their new home, all but a cow, 
which, amid the trials of saw-mill life, had been purchased, and 
came with far more rejoicing to the family than either baby. 
This they left to winter, but not to sell, for well he knew the long, 
even years', trial he made to obtain one, which he at last secured 
for lumber. They were now moved into their own house. " Sup- 
pose we sing Sweet Home," said the Lone One. — " Sing ! — we can 
never have singing in our family, for you learned in a saw-mill, 
and I In a prayer-meeting, and both are about alike." — "Well, 
we are out of flour, and that last you got is not paid for, and they 
won't trust you again, will they ? " — " And out of almost every- 
thing else, except a house ; but .... this is our house, and lot." — 
" Yes, and I am so glad, I feel as if I never want to move again." — 
" And we can have such a large garden here, I guess we can live." 
But another evil was upon them ; in plastering the house, for want 
of a glove, he had worn his fingers on the joints, and, by the aid 
of lime, the sores had become extremely bad, — so bad he could not 
use his hand, and for weeks was laid entirely up from labor, when 
they needed so much the pay, and when the creditors were in con- 
stant fear of losing the little money he owed them ; but he had a 
home, and this served to sustain him under all afflictions. 

Through all these trials, he had never learned to drink, to swear, 
to gamble, nor to cheat ; perhaps he did lie some — most people do ; 
but on this and all subjects he was strictly conscientious, but very 
9* 



102 LIFE-LINE OP THE LONE ONE. 

infidel, for the Boston Investigator famished his mental Sunday 
food through nearly all his trial-days ; and she liked its beautiful 
poetry, and interesting prose, nearly as well as he did. They 
were now once more close neighbors to the elder sister, who was 
also in a little shanty of their own, and poor, for the husband was 
sick with consumption, and, with their two boys, they were trying 
to breast the waves of competitive life. 

A mild winter of 1841 and 42 was slowly wearing off; the hand 
recovered slowly, and the Lone One found labor, often several 
miles from home; and, since the exorbitant rents were closed, 
the debts were worn slowly off. The lot had been fenced, and 
ploughed, before the house was built, and was ready for a garden 
soon as spring should clear off the snow. One subject was still 
in mystery : why God had not sent these babes to some of the fine 
homes of the rich, where such " blessings " were desired, for the 
pious always affirmed that " God giveth and taketh away." Cer- 
tainly, if they had a choice themselves, or were " free agents," 
they would enter such homes, and not crowd on to the poor in such 
profusion. Yet no family could have a more tender care and 
watchfulness than these parents over the germs intrusted to them. 
To the ignorant, God ever deals in mysteries ; to the enlightened, 
never. Spring and summer of 1842, labored in gardens, on farms, 
on the streets, in the woods, or anywhere where labor could be . 
found, and pay obtained, and thus fed and clothed the family, 
with the aid of the milk of one cow, and also during the season 
obtained lumber, and built a small barn, and supplied it with hay 
for the cow ; bought an old log school-house, where he had once 
tried to teach, and tore it down, built a wood-house, and secured 
some comforts around their little home ; had a good garden on the 
new land, where only the Indian had dug before ; and when '42 
was about to leave his Santa Claus tokens, the cellar and spare 
room in the little home were well supplied for winter. " Guess 
we shall not be turned out this fall," said the laborer. — " Hope we 
never shall move again, I do like this little home so," came the 
answer back. When the year went out, it also put out the third 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 103 

decade of the Lone One 5 and his effects summed up in, a wife and 
three babies, in a little seven by nine house, on about half an acre of 
his Father's earth, which, by several years' hard labor, he had at 
length obtained a title to, from those who had purchased, as he 
had, from an original robber, or thief, — for, as God had never 
sold it, of course those who did stole the title, or robbed Gk)d s 
aod his weaker children, 

*' A billion of acres of unsold land 
Are lying in grievous dearth ; 
And millions of men in the image of God 
Are starving all over the earth ! - 
0, tell me, ye sons of America, 
How much men's lives are worth ! 

<f Ten hundred millions of acres good, 

That never knew spade or plough ; 
And a million of souls in our goodly land 

Are pining in want, I trow, 
And orphans are ciwing for bread this day. 
And widows in misery bow ! 

Ci To whom do these acres of land belong? 

And why do they thriftless lie ? 
And why is the widow's lament unheard. 

And stilled the orphans' cry? 
And why are storehouse and prison full s 

And the gallows-tree high ? 

£C Those millions of acres belong to man ! 

And his claim is — that he needs ! 
And his title is signed by the hand of God — 

Our God, who the raven feeds; 
And the starving soul of each famishing man 

At the throne of justice pleads. 

*' Ye may not heed it, ye haughty men, 

Whose hearts as rocks are cold ; 
But the time shall come when the fiat of God 

In the thunder shall be told ! 
For the voice of the great I Am hath said, 

That the s land shall not be sold.' " 



104 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

Thirty years of struggles with disgrace and poverty had now 
been worn off, and, although he had obtained a little spot of -earth, 
to eat and sleep on, and to house his family on, yet he plainly saw 
that the whole system of land monopoly was robbery, and the 
greatest of all curses in the system of civil and political economy 
adopted by civilized nations. He had also given some attention 
to the study of phrenology, called to it at first by the abuse and 
ridicule which priests and religious papers heaped upon it ; for he 
had ever found them abusing the world's best reforms and reform- 
ers, and so it proved in this. He had already become an active 
participant, and the " Ladies Advocate," in the lyceum, and ever 
the opponent of theology, and the defender of new and unpopular 
truth. For, since he was what Christians termed an infidel, he 
could afford to defend what they condemned, until it should tri- 
umph, or be beaten. 

January 5, 1843. — Let us take account of stock : One tolera- 
bly healthy man, working out by the day, with a good prospect 
of following it through life. One poor, sickly wife, the mother 
of three children ; far more willing than able to do the work of 
the family. One sickly boy, near five and a half years of age, with 
poor promise of usefulness. One healthy and petulant girl, of 
three and a half years. One healthy boy, of one and a half years. 
A little cabin for the family, and one larger for the cow. Good 
supply of garden vegetables, and not much else, to live on. Was 
he not well paid for living and laboring as he had, for thirty years, 
in his heavenly Father's vineyard? "Truly, God is the God of 
the poor," said a Christian.- — " G-uess he is," said the Lone One; 
" but he pays them, I suppose, in heaven." — " If they are Chris- 
tians," replied the saint. — " And if not, does he cheat them out of 
their pay ? " asked the sceptic. — " If not Christians, he sends them 
to hell." — " Poor place that for his children ! " 



CHAPTER IV. 

FOURTH DECADE OF THE LONE ONE. 

Death. — Birth. — Death. — New Field of Mental Search after Spirits. — Change 
of Homes and Life. — Entered the School of Socialists, and reached the Grad- 
uating Class. — Entered the School of Politics, and graduated. — Entered the 
School of Affectional Development, and graduated with Honors, alias Slan- 
ders. — Entered the Class of Teachers, and graduated a Preacher. 

Section I. 

THE LONE ONE AT HOME. 

" Brother, art thou poor and lowly, 

Toiling, moiling, day by day — 
Journeying painfully and slowly 

On thy dark and desert way ? 
Pause not, though the proud ones frown ; 
Faint not, fear not, — live them down ! 

" Though to vice thou dost not pander, 

Though to virtue thou -dost kneel, 
Yet thou shalt escape not slander ; 

Guile and lie thy soul must feel — 
Jest of witling, curse of clown ; — 
Heed not either, — live them down ! 

" Hate may wield her scourges horrid, 

Malice may thy woes deride, 
Scorn may bind with thorns thy forehead, 

Envy's spear may pierce thy side ; 
So through cross shall come the crown : 
Fear not foemen, — live them down ! " 



106 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

" Strive on ! the ocean ne'er was crossed 

Kepining on the shore ; 

***** 

Strive on, 't is cowardly to shrink 

When dangers rise around ; 

***** 

Bright names are on the roll of fame — ~ 
* * * * * 

And these were lighted 'mid the gloom 

Of low obscurity, 

Struggling through years of pain, and toil. 

And joyless poverty." 
***** 

Elegant tombstones are erected only to preserve the memory of 
the rich. The poor do not need them, for they have their reward 
in the other life, if the Lazarus and Dives story is true as an exam- 
ple, or if Jesus' blessing reaches them. It is probably best that 
riches should be displayed over the graves of those who possessed 
them, as they will not mark any distinction in the next life. So 
of books, and especially biographies and lineage lines. They are 
mainly written of and for — but not by — the rich. The lines and 
lineage of poor people are of little account ; but this narrative 
will be an exception, and no doubt excepted, in the list of sup- 
plies, for it is only the history of a poor man, not trying to get 
rich, but trying to get a home, and then a deserved reputation, 
in spite of scorn and envy. If we follow the line of life of this 
family, I trust the record may be as useful as a tombstone over 
the grave of one who has gone to another world to live, and left 
his accumulations here. 

Forty-three* entered the throne of time in the winter, and held 
a cold grip for months, but at length began to soften, as the sea- 
sons were turning their varied phases. So the world of mind was 
in commotion, and constantly crowding individuals over the ups 
and downs of life. At this time the " Millerita excitement " was 
having its run in the West as well as East, and the deep snows, or 
prairie-fires, the eclipse, or the whirlwind, were alike seized as an 



LIFE-LINE OP THE LONE ONE. 107 

evidence that He was coming. Always betraying the deplorable 
ignorance of the very superstitious. A religious revival had con- 
verted most of the inhabitants of the village, and many of them, 
by their own acknowledgments, needed it, and some as often as 
once a year. The sceptic was compelled to admit a use in reli- 
gion, as it made some bad men acknowledge their sins, and thus 
warn those not to trust them who knew such conversions did not 
change the real character of the convert. Some of his neighbors 
were caught in the revival meshes, and some in the Millerite 
storm ; but he moved calmly through each, saying to one class, 
you will know better when you get sober ; and to the other, you 
prove it clearly from the Bible, but the Bible is not reliable, and 
this will show you it is not. And it did open the eyes of a few ; 
but the blind priests threw dust in the eyes of most of them, so 
they did not see the real truth, although they saw the world jog 
on as usual. 

Scarcely had the spring of '43 unlocked the casket, and dis- 
tributed the jewels of winter, when an entire stranger came to the 
little obscure home, more unwelcome than the one who brought 
the babies. It was a messenger from the " Islands of the 
Blessed," after one of the boys ; and for a few days it was uncer- 
tain which he would take, or whether both, or neither. But he 
finally called the younger, but had put his finger on the elder, and 
left him almost breathless ; and it was long before the father could 
catch from the low whisper the word salt, as the same boy that 
shed tears when he could not obtain bread for tears struggled with 
every gasp for breath, and dropped its tear again in grief, that it 
could not make an anxious father or mother understand the word 
salt. He was dying for salt, but the tear answered in the father's 
eye, as he at last caught the word, and only dared let him touch, 
with the tip of his tongue, the lump of salt, from which moment 
he began to recover. 

The stranger had gone, but he had taken the mother's darling, 
the noble boy, whom everybody praised. Beader, do you think it 
was God who sent that child to the wagon-house, and then took it 



108 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

from the little home ere it had either said or sung its mission here ? 
The doctor could not save it, and perhaps he thought they had 
enough without it. It broke a chord in the heart of the Lone One, 
and started a search, and research, which never ended until he as- 
certained whether that child had ceased to be conscious ; and when 
he found it had not, he did not stop until he ascertained its con- 
dition, and heard from his own darling boy the story of his new 
life, and friends, and home. But the body — what would such 
religious sceptics do with it ? No priest or deacon was called, and 
no sermon preached to save its soul. Their only fear was that it 
had no conscious soul. By the assistance of a few friends the 
oody was put under the soil, in the burying-ground, and an apple- 
tree planted on the top of the grave, and a crib fence placed 
around to protect the tree. The grave was often visited by the 
parents during their stay, and has been often visited by the father 
since. There, no doubt, lies yet the body, never to be resurrected ; 
and there grows the apple4ree, yielding its fruit. But the boy, 
now grown to a fine youth, with another body, often visits both 
father and mother, and they both know the fact, and him. The 
mother has often been made to feel, by his presence, that 

" An angel came to me, one night, 
With glorious beauty clothed, 
And with sweet words of hope and joy 
My way-worn spirit soothed. 

" He fanned my cheek and burning brow, 
And cooled my fevered brain, 
And with his own deep music-voice 
Sang many a loving strain. 

" £ 0, mine is not the power,' he said, 
1 To fit thy heart for heaven ; 
The gift to purify thy soul 
Unto thyself is given.' 

" I turned, the angel-guest to ask 
What could the vision mean ; 
He only smiled, then flew away ; 
I woke — 't was but a dream." 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 109 

But, 0, it has not proved a dream ; for soon she, too, will "leave 
the shell below," to join the happy throng who wait her there, and 
who have watched her through her night of trials and pilgrimage 
below. Work by day, and watch by night ; pay the doctor, but 
not the priest ! 0, foolish man, why not stop the doctor, and stop 
smoking, and leave the coffee in the store, and the meat in the 
market. Then, perhaps, you might feast, instead of fasting on 
spiritual food all the time. But he did not know it. He had* 
begun his studies in phrenology and mesmerism, and was making 
progress and practical use, as far as his time would allow ; which 
was not much, for he was street commissioner and road master for 
the town and village, and had plenty of work for himself and 
others on the roads, and constructing a bridge, all the summer 
and fall of '43. This was his work six days in seven, and in his 
garden and house on the seventh ; for he had not yet become a 
preacher. He collected or returned all the road-taxes of the town, 
for the land had been purchased, and the titles were now secure, and 
the property taxable, and the village fast growing to be a city, which 
it accomplished about ten years after, though rather a diminutive one. 
It does not grow much since. However, it is Kenosha, and nothing 
else, and has a selfhood among the cities. Occasionally he had 
sold goods at auction, as he had often done in Monroe, and this 
brought a call from Chicago. Two months he sold goods for 
Stanton & Russell, one of whom not long after went to " Pone- 
mah," from the kingdom of " Wabasso," in one of Fremont's 
excursions in the snow-drifts, and the other is " nobody knows 
where." He had also rented a spot of ground on the street, be- 
tween two stores that were near neighbors, and roofed it over, and 
had a store to use or rent, and tried to make it pay for itself; 
which it nearly did in the end, although the zealous anti-slavery 
man who furnished the materials shaved him with a two-edged 
instrument — high prices and great usury. But that is customary 
in all trades with the poor. The rich will not stand the shave, 
and how could a man get rich unless he could shave somebody ? 

I think I hear the reader say, about here, " I wish you would 
10 



110 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

hurry up this life-line ; I want to get at the marvellous part of 
the story." You might as well stop here, if that is what you are 
after ; for there is nothing marvellous about it, except the two 
ends of the story, and the knot that ties them together. All the 
rest is " commonplace," and such as you have seen. But it is a 
hard-twisted line, "and has been twisted from both ends at once ; 
perhaps yours has not. It is not a rope of sand, either, for it will 
not break between the ends. Perhaps you wish it would, but I 
do not wish so ; therefore we will go on, after a dessert. 

" . . . . Those who greedily pursue 
Things wonderful instead of true, 
That in their speculations choose 
To make discoveries strange news, 
And natural history a gazette 
Of tales stupendous and far-fetched, 
Hold no truth .worthy to be known 
That is not huge and overgrown ; 
In vain strive nature to suborn, 
And for their pains are paid with scorn." 

In the summer-time of '43, the inside history is also worthy to 
be recorded here ; for the Lord or the doctor had again visited 
the little home of one room in-doors, and one out-doors, and left 
another baby-boy, which several causes had hurried into this 
sphere both in embryo and in birth before its time. It had 
sparkling bright eyes, but none praised its body. The seven- 
months boy was approaching seven years, and doing well; but the 
eight-months boy, of course, could not stay here, for all the 
women said so, and therefore it only staid about eight months in 
the outer world, and began to be interesting and attractive, when 
the one who had gone to the other home came after him, accom- 
panied by a sister of his mother and several others, and they took 
him away to rear and educate in their new home. They laid its 
body beside the other under the tree, and returned sorrowing to 
the little home. But the poor, feeble mother — 0, what a trial 
was her life ! In the sexual blending of n at ares, in the mutual 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. Ill 

affinity of desires, in the congenial attractions of souls, in the 
mingling soul-sympathies of a love-life, in the deep, ardent emo- 
tions of a united heart-beat, the twain had never been one. The 
weaker form and milder nature of the wife and mother had ever 
been the greater sufferer. The hasty and abruptly-broken court- 
ship, which had been cut off ere it had ripened, had not been cul- 
tivated and preserved as it ever must be, before or after marriage, 
to secure happiness in conjugal life. Indeed, it is not certain 
that any but a life of courtship, in or out of marriage union, ever 
can be a life of mutual happiness for man and woman. It is certain 
that those who are most happy in married life court each other 
very much as before marriage ; and it is also certain that the life 
of the Lone One and his mate became a happy life when they 
renewed and continued their courtship, and not before. True, 
courtship, in or out of wedlock, would be somewhat different, but 
should never be so different as to prevent either from absolute 
control of person, nor should marriage ever give one party the 
right to dictate to the other, or compel, even by entreaty, any 
social or sexual relations not mutually desirable. How much 
misery might be saved, and how many homes now miserable 
might be made happy, by observing this rule of life ! This pair 
learned ify but late, later yet ; and after years of suffering and 
sorrow, such as many others experience, but seldom write or 
relate, but hide from all but those who can read the history 
written in the countenances of all persons who have any to be 
written in or on. The time has come when a sensualist cannot 
hide his character without hiding his face and shape of head and 
neck ; nor can his victim, if he have one, hide her sufferings with- 
out hiding herself; and close observation proves there are a few 
cases, and only a few, where the female is in the ascendant, and 
the man the victim ; but they are so few as to be scarcely worth 
noticing. 

Now we will let this domestic current run alone a while, 
since two babies have gone over, and two are trying to live 
here, and the mother is extremely feeble, and the friends all 



112 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

say she cannot live long with such a weak and emaciated form. 
Few, very few families can be found where there are less jars or 
discord, before or behind the curtain, than were felt in this little 
group of sufferers from hereditary and educational defects, and 
social ills they knew not how to cure. Patiently she toiled 
through these years of suffering, annoyed by a constant cough, 
which sometimes gave her not one hour's rest for weeks, and 
other trials of child-bearing in deep poverty ; but all these were 
developing in her a soul-sensitiveness which will ultimately carry 
her to the group who have come out of great tribulation. The 
trials were not all on one side, nor were the sufferings all on one 
side; but his " eager ardent " mind had a wider range for exer- 
cise than the one who was confined at home by poverty, sickness, 
and babies. 

" A little longer, but a little longer, 
And earth, with all its griefs, its joys, its cares, 
Its beauty and depravity, its burdens for 
The pent-up, struggling soul, its aspirations 
For a holier clime ; its jarring passions, 
And its c gushing sympathies ' (for even such 
Are found upon its rugged way), its loving hearts, 
And vile, unhallowed ones, and all it has 
Of beautiful and good, and bright and pure, • 

And the dark stains upon its loveliness, 
Shall pass away." 

" Then let us meeker bear its burdens, 
Struggle on more patiently amid its sorrows, 
Enjoy with purer, more heartfelt delight, 
Its blessings, and, with eyes upturned to heaven, 
And hearts longing more earnestly for its 
Enduring joys, await ' the change of spheres.' " 

When '44, the eventful year, began, some of the long evenings 
were spent by the Lone One with a small group of honest and earnest 
students of Mesmerism, who held regular meetings for experiment 
and investigation. A paper called the Magnet, edited by La Roy 
Sunderland, gave them most of their directions for management, 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 118 

until their own experiments became interesting and finally useful, 
especially to the Lone One, for he did not leave this lead until 
he discovered the existence and condition of his boy in the spirit- 
world, and of many others ; for, unexpectedly to him, it led 
directly to this knowledge, and those who dared to follow it far 
enough have found it to extend into and connect with the sphere 
of spirit-life most beautifully, in independent clairvoyance. It 
was through this channel that the Lone One entered the new con- 
dition of life, and became possessed of the, to him, all important 
knowledge of another life, and of the immediate and sometimes 
intimate connection of the two spheres. And by this, too, he 
learned that his mother was still in existence, and had, through 
many years of trial and hardship, watched over and guided him 
as well as she could, though not as well as she would have been 
glad to do, if possessed of more power. During these investiga- 
tions, some of the works of Swedenborg fell into his way, and aided 
him much in forming a philosophy ; for they were the first reli- 
gious books he ever read that united religion with philosophy and 
science, and therefore were the only rational ones to him. But 
these references run along over several years, during which other 
very important living currents in the life-line were running their 
race also. 

At this time the country was being much agitated by the dis- 
cussion of Fourier's principles of association, and the zeal with 
which the New York Tribune and several other papers defended 
the science of new social relations, and the reorganization of 
society ; and the glowing prospects of several societies already 
commenced — as they were portrayed by enthusiastic believers, 
who lived in, or visited them, — brought the subject before the 
lyceum of the little village, in which the sufferer from competition 
and social ills was a conspicuous member. He soon found enough 
to enlist him in its favor. Its vast economies, its equitable dis- 
tributions, its harmony of groups and series, its attractive industry, 
its advantages for schools, meetings, parties, and social festivities, 
all seemed to make its theory invulnerable to attack, except from 
10* 



114 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

the false and abominable doctrine of total depravity, which he 
never did admit, and which he believed to constitute blasphemy, 
if such crime existed. The Lone One entered ardently and ear- 
nestly into this new system, and sought all the information he 
could obtain of its principles and results. Then came the taunt 
from the opponents to him and others, " Why not practise it, if 
you believe it the best way to live ? " and they answered, We 
will. It is singular how little incidents sometimes turn the chan- 
nel of life. The home partner of the Lone One did not hear these 
discussions in the lyceum and everywhere, and hence did not 
become a convert to the doctrines, nor in love with the theory ; 
but she had ever been the silent partner, and acquiesced in all his 
plans for life, or only gently remonstrated, and then gave up, as 
she thought a true wife ought to do. In the spring of '44 an 
organization was formed, and some old fogies placed at its head 
to give it dignity. But the Lone One, who was really the mental 
motive-power of the organization, but who had no dignity, and 
very little money to add to it, was made vice-president, and of 
course, in the absence of the chief officer, had to act as presi- 
dent, and this was in all business meetings and matters. They 
had printed articles of agreement, which constituted an organiza- 
tion in all but the law. Had stock shares of twenty-five dollars 
each, on which, by offers of great usury, they raised several hun- 
dred dollars, and employed one Ebenezer Childs, of Green Bay, — 
a man long a resident of northern Wisconsin, and familiar with the 
country and the Indians, — to select for them a location, with 
land and water privileges. Sent with him three men, good 
judges of land, to accept or reject such location as he should point 
out to them. After about twelve days' search in a delightful 
country, and in the most favorable spring of many years, they 
at length returned, laden with the burdens, as those of old from 
Canaan ; but the committee, like that of the Jews, never went 
there to live. They had selected a tract of government land in 
Township Sixteen, North, Range Fourteen, East, ten miles from 
the Neenah, and on a small stream that tumbled over cliffs of 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 115 

lime-rock, and emptied into Green Lake three miles below the 
falls and the location. Next the money was collected and sent to 
enter the land ; but, as the association, which had now assumed 
the name of Wisconsin Phalanx, was not a legal body, therefore 
it could not hold land-titles. The treasurer had given bonds, 
which, in law, ran from somebody to nobody. One good friend 
to the Lone One and the enterprise, a young lawyer, was aware 
of this, and kept the leading mind informed on it. It was now 
evident that several prominent characters had only lent dignity 
and character to the movement, and never intended to lend other 
aid, and that the treasurer was of this character, and, like most 
men, of doubtful honesty when beyond the reach of law ; but the 
assembled officers had no other alternative for themselves or him, 
and therefore resolved to let him enter the land in his own name, 
and hold it till an act of incorporation could be obtained for the 
society, and then transfer it to the soulless being which the law 
should create. But the treasurer had paid in no part of the 
money, and by the resolve was not to send out all that was in his 
hands. The vice-president was made the business agent, to 
receive eight hundred dollars, and see to the entries ; leaving about 
one hundred dollars in the treasury, which never came out, for 
reasons. The lots were selected, and the money sent to Green Bay 
by a merchant of that place, and the duplicates obtained as the 
vice-president directed ; but they were not in the name of the en- 
raged treasurer. They came in the name of a quiet citizen of the 
village, of irreproachable character, and far too honorable to 
defraud any person, and one in whom everybody had confidence 
who knew him. This was a bold move for the Lone One, but 
such as the necessity demanded, as was fully proven afterward. 
He excused the assumption of power when it was necessary, by 
the fact that the wife of the treasurer lived in another state, 
and that his home, if he had any, was there also. The com- 
motion this would have caused was not felt by most of the inter- 
ested persons ; for while this was being transacted they had col- 
lected teams, and cows, and tools, and provisions, and tents, and 



116 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

started, — nineteen men and one boy, with three horse-teams and 
several ox-teams, — -" overland," to the land of promise, by the way 
of Watertown and the long prairie. They camped and marched, 
and marched and camped, and, after six days, met, at the house 
of the nearest settler, the Lone One, who had taken another 
route on foot, and alone, by the way of Milwaukie and Fond-du- 
lac, the latter being their post-office, twenty-five miles from the 
location, and the place where he received by mail the duplicates 
of land, which they were now to find and improve. This glad, 
Saterler Clark, neighbor, pointed them out the trail, — which 
means an Indian pony-road, and is very much like a snake's path 
in the mud. They camped at night where the city of Ripon now 
stands, on the north bank of the stream, near where the stone mill 
now stands ; and on the morning of May 27 — to them ever memo- 
rable — they repaired to the valley below, on the beautiful plain 
surrounded by hills, like an amphitheatre, and one of the most 
beautiful spots nature has formed in Wisconsin, and then, on their 
own land, pitched their tents, stuck their stakes, dipped their 
spades, and laid the corner-stone of the town of Ceresco, as the 
Lone One called the place, and the post-office, which was soon 
established, in answer to the petition and his request, with their 
acting secretary, L. R., one of nature's — but not man's — - noble- 
men, and a true-hearted reformer, as post-master. 

The 27th of May was duly solemnized and celebrated, this, and 
for several succeeding years, as the landing of the pilgrims ; but 
it is now all done, for other hands and motives guide the settle- 
ment. Yet it is pleasant to look back to the hours of joy, and 
hearts of quickened and joyous beat, that once assembled annually 
on that day, under banners, and listened to speeches and songs, 
and partook of the best the land could afford. But perhaps, 
reader, you were never out West ; and if so, perhaps never saw 
the beautiful spot here referred to, and you may not be aware 
that Uncle Sam bought the lands between the Mississippi and Lake 
Michigan of those who never owned them ; and, being himself the 
highest tribunal of authority in this world, could not have his 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 117 

title tried ; therefore he proceeded, by well-paid deputies, to run 
out these lands into townships of six miles square, and then to 
subdivide them into sections of one mile square, and again into 
quarters and quarter quarters, the last and least being forty 
acres. And these were sold and conveyed, by a title that was in- 
disputable in this world, whatever it may be in the next, where 
there is other authority. 

The south line of Wisconsin was the base line of this survey, 
and sixteen townships north of this line was the range of Ceresco, 
and fourteen east of a line near the great river, from which they 
counted eastward, was the exact spot which brought it in the 
north-west corner of Fond-du-lac county. But, as prejudice and 
envy has since changed the beautiful name of Ceresco, both of 
town and post-office, to Ripon, it is thus pointed out to the reader 
by landmarks. At the time of this immigration there was no 
settler in the township, and none in the one north, nor the one 
east, nor the one south, but three or four in the one west, on the 
beautiful border of Green Lake, which was a strip of timber 
between the prairie and the water. 

The long days were well filled with toil by the pioneer social- 
ists, and the short nights were devoted to sleep on the ground, 
under the tents. The Scotch sailor cooked for them in open air, 
and they eat on rough boards, under the shade of a bower, when 
it did not rain ; and when it did, they eat standing, to avoid an 
excess of water on the body, and because they could shed rain 
better in that position. They put in one hundred acres of wheat 
on the prairie for the next season, and potatoes, and corn, etc., 
for the running season. On the morning of June 10th, the 
ground was white with frost, and used up most of the corn, and 
beans, and vines, which they had hurried up on the new sod, so 
beautifully turned, where no rock nor root was in the way of 
plough and spade. They also began to erect three dwellings, 
twenty by thirty feet each, one and one half stories high, and 
thirty feet apart, which were completed by winter, from oak-trees, 
which furnished, without saw-mill, the frame, the clapboards, the 



118 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

shingles, and the floors, and all except the stairs and upper floor, 
which were obtained at a saw-mill twenty-two miles distant, at 
Waupun. A saw-mill was also erected, and a dam; and on this, 
in the hardest work, and most exposed labor, could be found the 
Lone One, almost every day, never to be beaten at hard labor, 
nor outdone in devotion to what he believed true. It was late in 
winter before the saw-mill was in running order, and then the 
stream was frozen too much for use, and they had to winter once 
without many boards for man or beast. The hay, which was 
abundant, supplied the place of boards for shelter for beasts, and 
for beds for the families. In this excursion the families had been 
left behind, and some of them were as impatient for their new 
homes as tKe husbands were to have their wives with them ; and 
ere the dwellings were enclosed, some families were already on 
the spot, brought by the horse-teams, which were kept constantly 
travelling from and to the old and new homes. 

Toward fall the Lone One returned to his home, and found 
the mate had improved in health, and all were quite happy 
in the little house. He informed the quiet citizen, M. F., that he 
was the legal owner of all their lands in Ceresco, and that, in due 
time, they should call on him for a transfer to the real owners ; and 
was assured that all was safe, and that the trust should be honor- 
ably fulfilled to the last. " 0, dear ! " said the sorry woman, " I 
am so fearful we shall not get a home of our own again, if we sell 
this and go up there ! " — "I cannot think of always working out 
by the day to support my family, and there would be no other 
chance for me here. Our prospects are better there than here; 
and we shall have a home in the domain as long as we cfwn a 
share of it, of course." — " Well, just as you say; but I don't feel 
reconciled to it ; but, as you have to earn all we have, it is right 
for you to control it." He soon found a purchaser for the little 
home, at seven hundred dollars, by taking a horse and buggy, and 
other property in part, and cash and notes for the rest ; and their 
effects were soon loaded on two wagons, and the wife and children 
in the buggy, and all on their way to the no home for her, called 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 119 

the new home, on the domain of the Wisconsin Phalanx. The first 
night found them at Burlington, where the elder sister, now a 
widow, was living ; for her kind husband had at last shaken off 
the consumption and his body together, and gone to the hereafter 
to fit a better home for her. They could not take her and the 
boys along, as they would have been glad to do, for the new home 
was only new land as yet, and they were yet dwelling in the tents, 
but not in the " tents of wickedness," for they had no rum, or drunk- 
enness, profanity, or licentiousness, and no lawing, doctoring, or 
Gospel-preaching, and, therefore, were nearly free from the wick- 
edness of civilization. Through awful roads and rainy days they 
at last reached the hill-top, which overlooked the plain below, and 
were soon discovered by the eager watchers, for they all felt the 
necessity of the Lone One's presence, and willing feet brought happy 
faces and ready hands to meet and greet them, ere they reached 
the quarters allotted for them, which were one fourth of one floor 
in one of the dwellings, parted from the other three families 
by carpet and quilt partitions, and from the out-doors by the 
crooked oak clapboards, through which light and snow could easily 
find entrance. Here they placed one bed and a stove, and packed 
and piled the rest as best they could, and thus, somehow, eight 
families lived in that house through the winter, which, fortunately, 
was a mild one. They all eat at a common table in the basement 
of another house, where all the cooking and eating was done by, and 
for, the society. Well may you conjecture, reader, that she was 
unhappy, for she had not partaken of the excitement that brought 
others willingly here ; but she did not scold nor complain much, 
but tried to bear it as well as her feeble body would admit. 

" She is content to stay, and smile, and suffer ; 
For when the ' golden gates ' unclose for her, 
She knows a spirit, that has waited long, 
Will clasp hers in a wordless welcoming ; 
Making the very memory of tears 
A strange dream of the night we misname life ! 
! when the sad smile trembles on her lip, 



120 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

In tenderness for other hearts that ache, 
She would not barter hers — a sufferer's — boon 
Of power to sympathize, for even the love 
Most tearless, sinless, sorrowless, in heaven ! " 

The history of the Wisconsin Phalanx would be interesting to 
many and useful to some, at least in disabusing the minds of those 
who never heard any good of it when it was alive. But we can- 
not give it a place here, save as it was connected inseparably with 
this Life-Line; for surely this line run directly through it, and 
formed the main artery of the body, without which it would have 
given several convulsive throes, and then been dead. When the 
families (about twenty) were all packed for winter-quarters, and 
the boys hunting fence-timber and saw-logs on Uncle Sam's land, 
then the Lone One started to secure a charter, or act of incorpo- 
ration, for the society. The act had been carefully drawn up by 
him, and submitted to the members, and approved, and he was 
authorized to secure its passage with as few amendments as pos- 
sible. With this view he visited several members of the territo- 
rial legislature, and submitted it to them, and secured the aid of 
some of them. While on this errand, and far from home, and 
they knew not where to send for him, a violent fever seized the 
wife and son, and both lay gasping for life in the rude corner they 
called home. Twenty miles distant was a skilful physician ; and 
a faithful friend, whose noble English heart ever beat in unison 
with the Lone One, made rapid strides till he reached the home 
of the doctor, and would not allow any delay till the doctor was 
by the bedside and heard her say, " My husband would not allow 
me to take calomel, nor will I consent to its use myself for either 
of us." — " Then I will do the best I can without it," said he ; and 
for eight days and nights he did not return to his home, nor leave 
them for many hours ; and on the ninth day the Lone One re- 
turned suddenly, unexpectedly, impelled by some interior force 
to him unknown. The physician said they were both out of 
danger, if attended with great care, as they had been by the ever- 
watchful friends. Forty dollars paid him, and ten more the coun- 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 121 

sel-doctor, who had been called from Fond-du-lac ; for they all 
expected she would die, and did not intend the husband should 
attribute any neglect to them. Soon the boy was up, and the 
mother gained fast under the magnetic influence of her husband, 
and soon was out of danger, so he could leave for the capital where 
the chosen committee to repair the laws of God and man were 
assembled. He was soon in the lobby, closely watching the fate 
of his bill, which did not excite much opposition in the Assembly, 
but, by the aid of his good friend, the doctor, from Fond-du-lac, who 
was a member in seat, was slowly and properly passed, with but 
slight amendments. It then went to the Council, where he also 
had some good friends, especially the one who held the titles to 
their domain. But here the cormorants attacked it, because they 
thought it a good subject to make capital on ; and down came the 
giant Argus, which was the paper that watched the interests of 
itself and party. The Lone One offered replies and defence, and, 
although a politician of the same school and party, the Argus dare 
not admit both sides, and it had decided the bill evil, and only a cheat- 
ing scheme, and most especially a social heresy. But the Lone One 
did reply through the whig paper, and through a daily democratic 
sheet in Miiwaukie, until the Argus was sorry it ever took up the 
subject ; and long after was more sorry still, for it felt the effects 
of the injury it had inflicted on innocent persons. But the owners 
got rich out of the territory and state, and therefore could afford 
to have sore consciences. Two lawyers, — one a democrat from the 
west part of the territory, who fell through some years after, 
because he kept bad company and bad counsel ; and the other a 
whig, then rude and undeveloped, but who afterward became a 
noble man, and the first and best chief justice in the state, — attacked 
the bill ; the first to please the Argus, and the last more for sport 
and fun than in earnest ; and it was a hard conflict for the law, so 
essential at that time for the security of the settlers. But at last 
the final vote let it through, and the rejoicing man in the lobby 
was permitted to follow it to the executive rooms. " It will not 
compromise my democracy to sign it, will it ? " said the smiling 
11 



122 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

Governor Tallmadge, as he pleasantly added his approval to the 
act, which enabled the Lone One to return to his anxious family 
and more anxious friends, who were waiting, in deep suspense, the 
fate of the charter. He soon reached home, and exceeding joy ran 
through the crowd as they heard the good news. " Now we are 
safe, for our property will be in our own hands." 

Soon the deeds were executed, and all the property safely 
lodged in the corporation, which, although, like all such bodies, 
it had no soul, had a name, and that was the Wisconsin Pha- 
lanx. The officers were soon elected under the charter, and the 
" tempest-in-a-teapot " excitement, which lasted till it was done, 
ail subsided, and the machine was a thing of life in the spring of 
'45, — breaking and ploughing its way in the new township like a 
" little giant." The neighbors, who had begun to locate in the vicin- 
ity, were greatly alarmed by it, and most of them were sure it would 
do mischief ; for it had great power, they said, and would monopo- 
lize. They wished the cursed thing was dead. A few only saw 
no evil in it, but only a power for good. These " four-year-ites " 
furnished the material and news for prairie-yarns and gossip for 
all the region round about, and tended greatly to alleviate the 
trials of tedious labor and long patience in the new homes. 

Summer of '45, the saw-mill was making boards; the "long 
home " was going up in sections, which continued to lengthen till 
twenty tenements, of twenty feet each, were joined together in 
two rows, with a hall between, all under one roof, with a ridiculous 
plan of a double-front house and hip roof, looking more like a 
rope-walk, or salt-works, than a house ; but it was the best they 
could do, so the architect said, and so the workmen responded. 
By personal effort, and great struggle, and some jealousy, the Lone 
One did get his tenement finished in the winter, and moved into it, 
— the most capacious house he had ever occupied in Wisconsin ; 
having one room twelve feet square and a bed-room below, and 
two bed-rooms above; no cellar, of course, for they lived a 
unitary life, which meant to eat at a common table and work a 
common farm. But the families all had separate homes to retire to 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 123 

after meals. A stone schoolhouse had been erected, and a school 
commenced, which never stopped, except for necessary vacations, 
till the society ran out its race ; and then it left the children of the 
members qualified for teaching the other schools, and children of 
their own ages around them. The township was set off and organ- 
ized, and an election held on the domain for town officers ; and, as 
there were only three or four other settlers, of course the officers 
were elected from the members of the Phalanx. The post-office 
also was in their hands, but they had to bring the mail from Fond- 
du-lac for the proceeds of the office ; which they cheerfully did, at 
much expense, once a week, for their own and their neighbors' bene- 
fit. They felt the great advantages and economies of combined 
labor and living ; but some were not satisfied with the unitary life, 
especially of houses, and sighed for the retirement of quiet meals 
in family circles, as of old. Others were greatly pleased with 
the unitary table. Both males and females were about equally 
divided on this subject ; but the plan and buildings had been com- 
menced for the unitary living, and could not easily be changed 
now. The single men, of which there were quite a number, were 
very much opposed to a change. This apple of discord finally 
grew until it was of sufficient power to break up the society, with 
other feebler aids. In '46 the improvements were greatly 
extended, a grist-mill erected for their own use, and this had to 
be watched to keep the envious neighbors from burning it ; and so 
strong was the prejudice because they would grind their own grain 
in their own mill, and would not, because they could not, grind 
for others. The jealousy increased as fast as their prosperity, and 
the Lone One saw that the only obstacle to success in social and 
cooperative life was the undeveloped and prejudiced condition of 
the people. 

The widowed sister and her two boys had been moved to 
the new home. A payment obtained on the old home enabled 
the younger sister to leave her son and daughter with the elder ; 
and now, nearly ten years after she had left her mountain home in 
New Hampshire, to think of a first and last visit to it. Soon all 



124 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE, 

was arranged, and she, feeble and emaciated, started, piloted by one 
of the best of sea-captains, who was also on a visit to his old 
home and family in Newburyport, where his wife, long accustomed 
to being captain in his absence, had learned to manage so well 
that she was captain when he was at home, and therefore, to be a 
captain, the old gentleman chose to sail on the prairies of the 
West, as he was too old to sail on the ocean. Safely they moved 
down the lakes and " raging canal," and over the mountains, till 
she reached her paternal home, where glad hearts welcomed her, 
as they would not have dared to do if she had come from the 
spirit-home, which she had so often neared, but never quite 
reached. Rapidly her health improved, and the release from 
cares, and home, and husband, enabled her to greatly recruit her 
natural powers, and become quite fleshy by the time set for her 
return in the spring of '47. 

" Is this the spot where once so well 

My taskless childhood loved to stray ? — 
Where now the sweet but nameless spell 
That lured mine idle step away ? 

" The charms which then my fancy fed 
In vain I now essay to find ; 
The spirit of the place is fled, 
And left its grosser part behind. 

" The rocks are not so quaint and gray, 
The leaves are not so fresh and green ; 
The brook, upon its noisy way, 

Is cheerless through the sylvan scene. 

" I am not raptured now to hear 

The warbled joys from every bough; 
The witching sky, so blue and clear, 
Is but a common prospect now. 

" 'T is I have changed ! for nature still 
To childhood's heart is just as dear, 
And forests, waters, field, and hill, 
Have music for its listening ear. 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 125 

" The dream of youth, which comes to all, 
Has passed like morning's starry train; 
Sweet memory may its form recall, 
But cannot give its power again. 

" The silvery streamlet of the glen, 

Which loves and fairies hovered o'er. 
Has flowed into the haunts of men, 
And lost its beauties evermore. ' ' 

Thus she sang and mused as the autumn closed its work of dis- 
robing the trees, and winter drifted the high rocks under snow, 
and the April suns sent the white sleet foaming down the cliffs. 
Then she sighed for her pets and her distant home again, with all 
its perils and trials. She was accompanied, on her return, by a 
cousin who came West to visit a sister in the Sucker state, and who 
soon married there and engaged in raising Suckers, beside her sis- 
ter. They were met, on their return, by the Lone One, at Sheboy- 
gan, and visited their old Southport home, then slowly returned to 
their new, but to her ever less happy, one, for not yet was she imbued 
with the principles of associative life. The Phalanx was now in 
the days of its prosperity ; increased its lands to near two thousand 
acres, and its stock to about thirty thousand dollars, and its fam- 
ilies to over thirty, and members to about one hundred and fifty. 
Most of them ate at one table, and worked together on the domain. 
Had a good and successful system of rewards for labor, by which 
they were not troubled with drones — danced one evening in each 
week, or rather the dancers did. Our family, whose line runneth 
herein, never danced nor sung ; but the Lone One usually preached 
on the Sabbath, and practised all the week. He also kept the 
public well informed of their success and prospects, through the 
Boston Investigator, the Phalanx, and Harbinger, and later the 
Univerccelum, for which he wrote during its life. The latter was 
almost worshipped at the domain, — at least, registered as the best 
of papers, — the little Pleasure Boat, of Capt. Hacker, too, sailed 
out there. But we must close this Phalanx history, and let it 
rest, for other lines require our record-pen. Capt. D. P. Mapes 
11* 



126 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

had settled in the town, and declared war against the Phalanx, 
although in sentiment he held opinions nearly the same as its 
leaders, especially on religion and politics ; but he was jealous of 
its power. He was a brave captain, but he could never make 
any headway in this opposition, but only served as an outside 
pressure to crowd them closer together, and prevent, for a time, 
the internal pressure from separating them. But at last the inter- 
nal pressure overcame the external, and the Phalanx died of a 
lingering fever in its collapse. It was interred in its own bury- 
ing-ground, by its own children, and the requiem sung by its own 
council, and its epitaph written by the Lone One, about as follows: 
Born in the spring of 1844, in Southport, Wis. ; nursed and edu- 
cated by several teachers, but principally by the Ladies Advocate ; 
married in 1845, by the Territorial Legislature, to the statutes of 
Wisconsin (the wife died when the territory became a state) ; 
certified by Gov. Tallmadge ; settled and lived in Town Sixteen, 
Range Fourteen, which it named Ceresco, in honor of Ceres, a corn- 
goddess, of which it was a worshipper; grew and flourished, 
and controlled the town for several years, until it " took sick," 
first of chills and fever, and finally of severe fever, which weak- 
ened its vital powers, until in 1850 it died, quietly and resignedly, 
having reigned six years triumphantly, and put all enemies under 
its feet, by its justice and honor. — Owned a large farm, which 
was divided among its children, greatly improving their estates, 
and leaving all but the Lone One better than it found them. — 
Had been a great stock and grain grower, raising in one season as 
high as ten thousand bushels of wheat. — Had one genius who 
did most of its preaching and law business, and others who 
attended to the sanitary department. — Never used intoxicating 
drinks, nor allowed them on its farm. — Never used profane lan- 
guage, nor allowed it, except by strangers. — Never had a law- 
suit, nor legal counsel. — Had little sickness, and no religious revi- 
vals. — Never had a case of licentiousness, nor a complaint of 
immoral conduct. — Lived a strictly moral, honest, upright, and 
virtuous life, and yet was hated, despised, abused, slandered, lied 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 127 

about, and misrepresented, in all the country round about, — mostly 
by preachers. — Kept a school of its own all the time. — Took 
five or six newspapers to each family. — Stopped work on Sunday 
to accommodate the neighbors, and rung its bell for meetings, 
■ — But they danced without rum, or vulgarisms and profanity. — 
They had meetings without prayers, and babies without doctors. — - 
But it was prematurely born, and tried to live before its proper 
time, and, of course, must die and be born again. So it did, and 
here it lies. 

The charter was amended so as to allow a closing up of the 
affairs, and the books, papers, and business, placed in the hands 
of the Lone One ; and by him all deeds and legal papers were exe- 
cuted, and all the business settled and closed, leaving the books in 
the hands of the still living president of the dead Phalanx. The 
papers noticed its death, and some rejoiced, and some were sorry ; 
but many true friends mourned throughout the land, and none 
more than some of its heirs. But not the Lone One ; for he had 
seen the necessity for its death, and submitted to fate willingly. 
In the division and sale of the estate, he bought a portion of the 
fine large mansion, which had been erected, but not finished, and 
lots for a garden ; and again, with his own hand, soon had a better 
house than ever before, and a fine garden ; soon made up his loss, 
and was worth more than when he came to the domain, although 
he had expended much of the little sum he received for the old 
house in defending the system, by lectures and letters, etc. The 
burying-ground (six acres) and the bell still belong to the estate, 
and are to be heired by the last survivor of the domain. 

DIRGE OF THE PHALANX. 

WRITTEN IN CERE8CO, BUT NOT BY ONE OF ITS HEIRS. 

What spot shall I choose for my long, last home, 
When a wanderer on earth I shall cease to roam ? 
When the angel of death shall come sweeping by, 
And his cold breath shall close my weary eye ? 
When above my heart lies the cold damp sod, 
And my spirit returns to its maker. God ? 



128 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

! say, shall I lie by the ocean's side, 

Where my grave will be surged by the briny tide ? 

Where the sea-gull screams, and the wild waves roar 

As their fury breaks on the craggy shore ? 

Say, is that the place where my form shall rest, 

When the winding-sheet is upon my breast ? 

Or some drear spot in the church-yard share, 
Without e'en a flower above me there, 
Where alike are buried both friend and foe, 
When the arrow of death has laid them low ? — • 
Not there, not there, would I wish to lie, 
In the cold, cold grave, when I come to die. 

But dig me a grave in the prairie land, 

Far away, far away, from the ocean sand, 

Where my friends may come, when their work is done, 

And sing o'er my grave at the set of sun 

The song whose music was wont to thrill 

My heart e'er the pulse of life was still. 

! there is the place I would wish to lie, 
When the angel of death shall have sealed mine eye ; 
And my friends, should ever they chance to roam 
Near the spot I have chosen for my long home, 
Let them kneel by my grave and breathe a prayer 
For the friend who is sleeping in silence there. 

It had no soul to be saved. One more feeble effort at associa- 
tive advantages was made after the burial of the Phalanx, and dur- 
ing the settlement of the estate, by a few friends who joined the 
Lone One in the enterprise. A large and commodious store was 
erected, by shares, and the Protective Union plan adopted to sup- 
ply it ; and thus an attempt made to purchase merchandise, and 
market the products of their labor, by agency, and save the enor- 
mous profits of merchants. This enterprise " started and run well 
for a season," but a fever of somewhat different character from 
that which proved fatal to the Phalanx seized its vitals, and it 
cost so much to pay the doctor, that its friends abandoned it, 
perhaps rather cruelly, but, as it seemed at the time, necessarily ; 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 129 

and of course it died, and was buried, and its estate settled itself; 
but the store stands on its foundation still, a fa'ding monument of 
premature birth, much resembling good principles in bad company. 
Now all the reformers of Ceresco joined, and sang one song, and 
parted. The song was written by one N. Brown, some time, and 
somewhere, and ran as follows : 

" My heart is sick, my soul is pained within, 
To see this Babel- world so rent with strife ; 
To hear its heartless shouts, its Babel-din, 
As onward flow the feverish streams of life : 

There rush the worshippers of gold and pelf ; 

Here stand the human gods of pride and self, 

" Behold the struggle ! the mad, selfish rush 

For shining baubles or a beggar's crust ! 
In vain, divines, ye try the tides to hush, 

Though hearts are dead or bleeding in the dust : 
There kneels the nabob, drawling out a prayer; 
Here dies the o'er-worked victim in despair. 

" Like chaos-fragments strewn upon life's sea, 

And hastening onward to an uncared shore, — 
Whirling and dashing ever as they flee, — 

Leaping and crashing 'mid the storm-king's roar, 

Is the mad world of men. Wrecked is the world 

By self and sense, to very chaos hurled. 

" Gold, give me gold, though dimmed with orphan's tears ! 

Fame, give me fame, though bought with human gore !' 
Away with heart and soul — away with fears ! — 

Gold, gold, though here 's the grave, yet give me more ! 
Shut up the book ; talk not of brotherhood ; 
Man lives for self, not for the common good. 

" For untold ages thus the world hath gone, 

By self and sense in broken fragments riven, 
Yet yearning still for a millennial dawn, 

When this same world should be a type of heaven. 

Talk not of heaven, or of a golden age, 

While social ills in ceaseless battles rage. 



130 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

" Ten thousand temple-domes in grandeur rise 

Where priestdom learned expounds the ' word of life,' 
Where man is taught to live but for the skies, 
And leave to Satan this mad world of strife ; 

Where Sinai's flames assay the soul to awe, 

And creed is worshipped as the saving law ! 

" The human mind by threats of heavenly wrath 
Has long been chained within a narrow sphere ; 
Like a poor blind man groping for the path, 
Yet fearing still that pitfalls opened near. — 
Thus man, alas, choosing a moral night, 
Lest reason lead him from the creed's dim light. 

" The world is rich in musty lore and creeds — 

In mysticism, and in temple show — 
In spirit-chains ; but poor in brother deeds 

To the great brotherhood of man below. 
The central truth designed the world to save 
Is crushed by self to a dishonored grave ! " 

This was the last, and these the only, experiments ever made 
by the Lone One at associative or cooperative life ; and these the 
only societies, public or private, to which he ever belonged ; and 
they died so young they did not destroy his heirship to the name 
of Lone One. 

Section II. 

POLITICS AND THE POLITICIAN. 

We must now turn back to '47, and fetch up the lagging stream 
in this current of life-history. Wisconsin Territory began to 
scold about her rights, and demanded larger hoops for her skirt, 
and larger dresses for her form ; and, after considerable fretting, 
finally proved, by the number of her soles (not years), that she was 
old enough to leave the nursery, and be her own mistress. Uncle 
Sam was glad to get rid of the troublesome flirt, if she would 
cease squalling for wider skirts on the Illinois and Michigan sidea 
and, with that restriction, gave her permission to run at large, and 
dress herself. 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 131 

The " unterrified democracy," who are always on the alert when 
offices are to be filled, sounded the tocsin, and called their local 
conventions, to double up in counties, and organize for action. 
The Lone One was born nothing, and almost nowhere ; but he was 
educated into democracy, and heard the sound. He called the 
roll for democrats in the Phalanx : but a majority, including wom- 
en, were whigs or nothing. However, there were enough demo- 
crats to hold a meeting, and send him to the county session, where 
a ticket for the campaign was to be put up, and those elected over 
the territory, to the number of about one hundred and twenty-five, 
were to assemble, and adopt a constitution, and submit it to the 
voters for acceptance. The whigs were not much later in action, 
and equally efficient ; and, although less numerous in the territory, 
they, were not less zealous. But Ceresco had no ambitious whig, 
and took no part in the caucus. Notwithstanding the strong prej- 
udice against the Fourierites and the Phalanx, still the Lone One 
received the nomination as one of the three to represent Fond-du-lac 
county in the constitutional convention. The other two and their 
friends were, however, greatly concerned lest they should be de- 
feated by his connection with the unpopular society. The day of 
election came, and the whigs of the Phalanx had resolved to nip 
the ambition of the aspiring democrat in the bud, and labored 
hard to prove it was not best for him to be elected, and did suc- 
ceed in leaving him one or two votes behind his colleagues in the 
town. But in the county he was, to the surprise of all, so far 
ahead as to be the only one elected on the ticket ; and, with the 
two whigs from the other ticket, he went to the capital at the time 
appointed, to make his debut as a political actor on the stage, and 
inside the circle. The convention was a motley group, called from 
city and town, from prairie and grove, from forest and " deep-tan- 
gled wild-wood ; " fat and lean, short and tall, bright and dull, keen 
and stupid, democrats and whigs, and some who could only register 
when they saw which was strongest — and that did not take long, 
for democracy was greatly in the ascendant. Some half a dozen 
saucy lawyers expected, and determined, to rule the convention, 



132 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

and make all the noise for their own glory. But they soon found 
some material that was not so easily whipped down, and among 
the most " unruly members " was the saucy tongue of that Fou- 
rierite, which he soon learned to use as freely and sarcastically as 
the best of them. But, as he ever used it to defend the weak, 
and those who needed defence against the arrogance and abuse of 
impudent demagogues, he of course made friends of such, and 
even commanded the respect of those who did not love him. 

The capital was situated on a beautiful eminence between two 
lakes, at a place called Madison. The building was erected and 
enclosed with ten acres of the land, purchased of those who never 
owned it, by Uncle Sam, and of course given, as an outfit, to the 
daughter when she married the Union. A greater variety of " odd 
sticks " was probably never assembled since the " Council of Nice " 
than was now in session at this capital, to make a constitution for 
a still greater variety of people. The white-haired sage and 
beardless boy, the thinking sceptic and superstitious fanatic, the 
sober conservative and the fiery radical, the hunker wheel-horse 
and the prancing progressionist, those who pray and those who 
swear, those who preach and those who sleep, speculators and 
honest men, knaves and fools, — "all mingle, mingle, while you 
mingle may." It was a long session, and made great noise ; but, 
like the " mountain in labor" " a mouse was born." As the Lone 
One was a leader of the progressionists, and had much influence 
in securing such features in the instrument as rendered it too 
radical for the people, and partly caused its defeat, and as this 
was the first chance he had to record his political views on public 
records, it is proper to notice some of the leading principles he ad- 
vanced and defended. His first blow was aimed at capital pun- 
ishment. It met a good reception in the convention, and might 
have succeeded, but for the alarm raised by several lawyers and 
preachers, and the awakened Christians, who " would have sacrifice, 
and not mercy; " and they voted him down as a matter of expe- 
diency. But he labelled them with somebody's poem. 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 133 

u How is it, when you doom to death 

Some victim for his crimes, 
Accounting him not fit to live, 

You still allow him time 
To make his peace with God for what 

Yourselves will not forgive ; 
Presuming him, when fit to die, 

As not yet fit to live? 

" Now, though he be not fit to live, 

Is he prepared to die — 
Sent strangled from this world of woe 

Before his God on high ? 
You send unto his darkened soul 

Repentance and the priest, 
And when reduced to penitence 

You hang him like a beast. 

" How can you know just how much time 

Your victim should be given 
For such repentance as shall send 

His spirit pure to heaven ? 
Supporters of the bloody code, 

I pause for a reply : 
How is it, if unfit to live, 

A man is fit to die? " 

His next attack was upon the qualification of voters ; and he 
exposed the ridiculous position of those persons, or laws, which 
make color, or sex, a qualification to vote, or even age, and de- 
manded an intellectual standard, or a taxation standard. Some 
were amused, and some horrified, at the proposition to let women 
and " niggers " vote ; and almost all voted against the women, and 
all but fourteen against striking out color as a test ; by which he 
saw the men would sooner let the negroes have their rights than 
the women, and he was confirmed in what he before believed, that 
the slavery of women was deeper, and more lasting, than that of 
negroes in the hearts and prejudices of the people, and even often 
approved and sustained by woman herself. How can she expect 
the " lords of creation " to give her her rights, when she does not 
12 



134 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

ask for them ? But he recorded his vote for the right, even if 
alone, and left it to await the " good time coming ; " for well he 
knew all these principles must triumph, if the race continued to 
progress. Next came the right of married women to hold and 
control real estate. On this they had a great contest, but it suc- 
ceeded, and was incorporated in the instrument, and was one of 
the principal features that caused its defeat, although the agitation 
brought the public mind up to it, and it became one of the early 
and permanent statutes of the state, and remains there " to this 
day." Next came his firm and uncompromising opposition to land 
monopoly, and in favor of limitation of titles to occupancy. But 
this was a vain effort; for the supreme law of the nation, to 
which, in that day, the people knew no " higher law," was in the 
way, and they could not disturb the absolute power of the govern- 
ment to give titles to the lands it had obtained of the Indians, 
who only borrowed it of God, and had no right to sell it. These 
principles could only find an expression in a limitation of leases, 
to prevent what will probably never again occur, the " anti-rent 
troubles " of the Rensellaer estates. He next planted himself 
against all military shows and parades, and endeavored to crowd 
the whole system out of use. But several old fogies were there 
who had no other honor, and could not afford to lose rank, and 
title, and honor, and they voted him down. 

He was a democrat of the Jackson school on "banks and 
banking," and took the hard-money side with the hardest of the 
hards ; and thus aided in adding this fatal dead weight to the in- 
strument. He next planted himself against all laws for the col- 
lection of debts, and would have swept away the whole system of 
civil policy on this subject. It was not difficult to prove that the 
cost of collection was greater than the amount collected, in every 
state, and almost every county, of the nation, and that it would 
be better to tax the people with the debts than with the cost of 
collection. There was in the territory an old, thick-skulled hunker 
judge, — Miller, — who holds to this day a post of profit (but 
not honor to him), who was for some years greatly alarmed at this 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 135 

heresy and prospective innovation, and tried to make others, if 
not himself, believe it was unconstitutional. Whether he was so 
blind he did not see, as the simplest reasoner would, that if the 
state repealed its collecting laws, and enacted none, they would 
not be unconstitutional, is more than we can say of him. But 
more than this record proves that he was very much wanting in 
judgment and perception, although he had much dignity, and a 
" little learning," which Pope said was a " dangerous thing." Of 
course this measure could not succeed in this convention, and the 
Lone One did not expect it to ; but he wished to agitate the subject, 
and give promise of the future. There were many able advocates of 
this measure in the state, and among the early ones his old friend, 
who so safely held the titles, and so readily surrendered them. 

These were not all, but some, of the principal radicalisms and 
wild vagaries that gave the Lone One notoriety in his first public 
mission. He was ever found in his place, and always had a word 
to say for every proposed extension of freedom and rights to all, 
and ever went for the largest liberty and broadest platform. He 
had already become quite an extensive writer ; and during this 
session he often pictured for the press the scenes and persons, and 
gave many comic, and some ludicrous, descriptions of the prominent 
actors, the effects of which were felt long after, and proved it true 
that " A chiel 's amang ye takin' notes, an' faith he '11 prent 
'em." Like all long things, this convention had its last as well 
as first end ; and all returned to their homes, some to deny and 
oppose their work, and some to support it, and the Lone One of 
the latter class ; and both tongue and pen were occupied in its 
defence ; but it was ho go. The voters laid it out, and the terri- 
torial session assembled, and called another convention, of about 
seventy members, to prepare another. Most of the old members 
were slain in the conflict, and did not appear again at the capital 
for some years. The Lone One was returned by his county as one 
of the two delegates, by a large and greatly increased majority 
over the other election, and met there five — only five — of the 
first delegation. He soon found this a more conservative, but far 



136 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

more practical, body, and one in which he could exert more influ- 
ence, and on which he could place more reliance, than the first. 
He felt much more at home in this body than in the other ; but he 
had learned, by the result of the last election, the true position of 
the people, and knew about what they would bear of reforms and 
radical measures, and was not inclined to crowd reform measures 
before the people were ripe for them, nor to insert in a constitution 
what belonged exclusively to the statutes of a state. He soon 
found his place, as the journal shows; the most active member of 
the convention ; in his seat every hour of the session ; voting on 
every question. This time he succeeded in leaving out the mili- 
tary code, and all militia laws. He secured the civil rights of all 
persons as jurors and witnesses, whatever their views of God or 
religion, and found many good friends to cooperate with him in 
such sanitary provisions. They also inserted a provision designed 
especially to prevent the legislature from employing chaplains, and 
other useless appendages to its sessions ; but the provision is dis- 
regarded. Capital punishment, homestead exemption, rights of 
married women, collecting laws, and usury laws, &c, were all left 
for the legislature to tamper with as the people would bear or 
demand. The banking question, of which the Lone One was 
chairman, was the worst and most difficult of all, after such a 
hard defeat of the hards ; and still the return of democrats showed 
the politics had not changed. The subject was at last adjusted 
somewhere between two extremes, and the short and business-like 
session adjourned. 

Is it strange, reader ? — when the Lone One returned to the 
tenement in the long home, from this convention, he found another 
boy had been added to the family, — not one of those returned 
who had gone away, but a new one ; came from God, the pious 
old women said ; but he thought it came from its parents. Either 
way, it was a pretty child, and they concluded to keep it. The 
elder sister and her two boys drifted slowly over the way to her 
eastern friends ; and neither she nor others knew his regret at his 
inability to assist and even support her ; but he was poor yet, for 



LIEE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 137 

his expenses were exceeding his receipts each year, while the quiet 
laborers on the domain were gaining fast under his system of pol- 
icy, with which he was satisfied. " But how are the honors in 
these two games of politics?" asked a friend. "Are you any- 
thing by honors ? " — " Yes," he replied ; "I am two by honors, 
and nothing by tricks." — " Then you do not play your hand 
well; better take me for a partner." — " No, never ! I shall pad- 
dle my own canoe in every storm, and sink or swim, as fate will 
have it." — " Go your own way, then ; I shall oppose you." This 
came from the colleague in the last convention who lived in the 
liquor-end of the county, and wished to attend to the drinkers, 
and get the Lone One to aid him with his temperance friends ; 
and thus they could win by tricks in selfish games of political 
chess. But he was the Lone One in this, as in all else ; never 
entered a league, nor joined any society but the Phalanx, and that 
promised now to be sufficient as a school of experience. The 
friends were glad to see him home, for they had many tangles to 
be straightened out as he each time returned ; and some did work 
up a prejudice against him, because he possessed, and yielded to, 
ambition in political life. But it was a school in which it became 
necessary for him to graduate for future usefulness, although he 
did not then know it. 

Who make politics a trade, and struggle for the spoils, 
Had better take to spades, and shuffle in the soil. 

Ye worker in the soil, tell me, if you can, where is the happy 
man? Statesman, politician, merchant, lawyer, doctor, preacher, 
Christian, pagan, heathen, tell me, if you can, where is the happy 
man ? " Not I ! not I ! " cries each and all ; but Pope replies, 

" Man never is, but always to be blessed." 

Heaven is in the future, happiness in the distance, and we are 
going to it, certainly. " Hope springs immortal in the human 
breast." A little longer, and yet a little longer. 

The work of the second convention was readily accepted by the 

12* 



138 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

people, although many thought the first constitution the better of 
the two ; but there were too many impatient office-seekers to longer 
delay in starting the machinery of state. Provision was soon 
made for an election, and the conventions assembled to set up the 
candidates, to be shot at by friend and foe, — one shooting to kill, and 
the other to save, the mark. The pen of the Lone One had start- 
ed, not soon to stop ; and he had already become a scribe of some 
note, both far from, and near to, home ; and his articles (not al- 
ways over his own name) were often trite with satire, or keen with 
acumen, or graphic in description, or prophetic for politicians, and 
often had a marked and wide effect where the author was unknown. 
The friends of the Lone One, after a long and hard contest, at 
length secured his nomination for the state Senate, for the district 
comprising Fond-du-lac and Winnebago counties, to which fell a 
full term of two years ; and at the canvass, again, to the surprise 
of friends and foes, he was elected with an aggregate majority of 
two hundred against his ticket in the district, and three Assembly- 
men of the opposite party in the other branch, and every effort of 
his former democratic colleague made in secret to defeat him. 
But the Germans had caused the result, for they knew he was the 
friend of human, and of equal, rights ; and some of his letters, 
without his knowledge, had been translated, and circulated among 
them, and caused the result. This proved to be his graduating 
class; for after this all other degrees were merely honorary. 
When the roll was called, the Lone One was in his place in the 
Senate of law-makers for the new state, better prepared than ever 
before for public or private duties. For, some time before this, he 
had quit the filthy habit of smoking, had abandoned forever the 
use of swine's flesh, and, at that time, even all meats; and tea 
and coffee, and other mixtures, were forbidden drinks. His gran- 
ulated eyelids, which had annoyed him for ten years, soon recov- 
ered their healthy condition ; his mind was calm ; and his excita- 
ble, passional nature was quiet as a calm sea in a still atmosphere. 
Thus he was prepared for duty. Other causes than political ones 
had induced these changes, which will be given in due time. 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 139 

At the assembling of the session, he met an old and intimate 
friend, whose political, religious, and social opinions corre- 
sponded with his own ; and for the two sessions they occupied 
the same desk, and became the " David and Jonathan " of the 
Senate, usually, but not always, voting on the same side of ques- 
tions. Among the first permanent laws secured was a homestead 
exemption, without a pecuniary limitation ; thus securing a great 
principle, for which they had both been early advocates. The 
darling object of the Lone One, to repeal the usury laws, and let 
money seek its own market and value, like any other commodity, 
passed the Senate, but was lost in the House ; but, at the next ses- 
sion, passed both, and remained the law two or three years, when 
the speculators again triumphed, and set up the usury " statute of 
limitations," as a screen for rogues, which was all it ever was in 
any state, allowing them to take transfers of property, to avoid 
the law. Of course the repeal of the collecting laws was intro- 
duced ; but the lawyers dare not submit the question to the peo- 
ple, lest it should succeed, and the collecting business find an end. 
The death penalty could not be removed at this term ; but, after 
three or four years' fight with the religious bigots who defended it, 
it was at last removed, and the state came up where she ought to 
have been before. The rights of married women to hold property, 
real and personal, were soon and early secured ; and thus that prin- 
ciple, at first so odious, was secured, and the state not ruined by 
its adoption. Senators to Congress were elected, and pledged to 
" Land Reform ; " and strong resolutions, drawn by the Lone One, 
were passed in favor of " free soil," in its true sense. Commis- 
sioners to revise the statutes were selected ; and, by extraordinary 
effort, David and Jonathan secured the election of the Southport 
friend, who held the titles for the Phalanx, as one of them ; for he 
was a good man and true, as well as capable. Some old laws were 
repealed, and some new ones enacted; and soon the business of 
the first, the summer session was closed. 

The commissioners commenced their labor, and the members 
returned home to attend to elections, etc. Many questions and 



140 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

points of controversy arose in these sessions, in which it would be 
interesting to the politician to see the course and vote of this sin- 
gular person ; but, as our Line is for all sorts of readers, we must 
be brief in these sketches, for there is a longer line of another 
quality to follow. We must, however, say, he was ever true to 
the principles which had governed him through life, of equal 
rights, without distinction of sex or color, to life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness. Some one asked him how he could take the 
oath ; to which he replied, that he never did take an oath, and 
never should, but entered upon his duties as an officer, or juror, or 
witness, with an affirmation of the simplest nature allowed by 
law ; and he did endeavor to dispense with all forms of oath in the 
state, and let the penalties attach to the falsehood or default, as 
they ever should. He sustained the constitution against the 
chaplains ; but the profane and dissipated members, who needed 
some support, always succeeded in giving them a chance in, by the 
aid of a few honestly pious ones, who felt it a religious duty. 

During this session the little daughter came very, very near a 
change of spheres, by a lung fever; and but for the magnetism of her 
physician, rather than his medicine, no doubt would have crossed the 
line. The pale babe, too, had its sick time, and the feeble mother 
had " heaps " of trouble and trial — almost enough to kill a well 
woman ; but she lived, and so did the children, for God had con- 
cluded not to take away any more of them, and had also resolved 
not to send any more to that house. 

Soon after his return, the tangles of the Phalanx, and the fam- 
ily, were picked out, and some progress made in straightening the 
political tangles of the county and state. But these were too 
extensive for one mind to arrange, although the poet hath said, 

" The steady Greeks old Illium won ; 
By trial all things may be done " 

And another, that 

" A man's best things are nearest him, — 
Lie close about his feet ; 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 141 

It is the distant and the dim 
That we are sick to meet." 

In 1848 the national campaign called all the voters to the 
defence of their respective candidates, and Lewis Cass was placed 
before the democrats. But the positions he occupied on some 
questions of policy were widely at variance with those advocated 
by the Lone One or his senator-friend, and they both rebelled 
against authority, and refused to support him ; and both took 
bold and open ground against his election, covering their retreat 
from the democratic nomination by the Buffalo platform, and the 
support of the foxy Van Buren, who was really not as good a man 
at heart (as subsequent events proved) as even Cass ; but it was 
principles, not men, they claimed. This closed a door which was 
already open for the Lone One to pass to Congress. And no doubt 
luckily for him ; for it was well for his spiritual development that 
his political ambition was cut short at the end of this time. For 

" Our feelings and our thoughts 



Tend ever on, and rest not in the present." 



■ " In the human heart 



Two master-passions cannot coexist." 

The second session, which followed close on the heels of the 
first, was a very important session to the future welfare of the 
young state ; for the whole code of its laws was remodelled by it, 
principally by introductions from the commissioners. The legal 
ability displayed by the Lone One in the first session gave him in 
the second a place on the judiciary committee of three, which, in 
this revising session, was constantly taxed with complicated and 
vexing questions ; but the benefit of his rigid system of diet — his 
cool head and devoted heart — were of great use to him and his 
colleagues, both of the committee and the Senate. By his special 
care and effort the divorce laws were greatly changed from the 
report of the commissioners, and nearly as he wished them, but 
not quite ; for he wished all cases arising under them entirely at 



142 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

the discretion of the court, whether presented by one or both of 
the parties in contract. An observation of the civil contract which 
we call marriage, in its practical workings, had convinced him 
that it should be subject to general, and not special, laws regulat- 
ing civil contracts, and treated and controlled as other contracts 
between contracting parties. But the facts are, that the law has 
never recognized woman as capable of doing a legal business — of 
binding or unbinding herself; and hence the special laws of mar- 
riage and divorce in all countries where they have laws and mar- 
riages. Of course we must trot in the beaten path where our 
fathers trotted, however rough and crooked the way ! 

At this session he early secured the repeal of the usury laws, 
and several other obstructions to prosperity ; and it was generally 
admitted throughout the state that no member in the Senate did 
more business or had more influence than the Fourierite. But his 
most intimate friend, and almost always co-worker for reforms, 
was not wanting in effort, capacity, or devotion. The schools and 
university of the state were set in motion, and, in fact, all the 
important machinery of a new state had to be put in place and 
motion by these two sessions ; and all persons who studied the 
condition and prospects of Wisconsin admitted the liberality and 
advanced condition of her constitution and laws, much of which 
was really the effect of action and influence exerted by the Lone 
One and his brother. During these four sessions which he had spent 
at the capitol he never drank even a single glass of any kind of 
liquor at a bar or counter, except lemonade or soda, nor met with a 
single dinner or supper party, except at ordinary meals ; attended 
no balls, dances, or night meetings of any kind, and joined no 
riding or skating parties ; but was always steady, constant, atten- 
tive to business, and ever in his place in session, or at his quiet 
and retired private boarding-house when out of session, or walking 
with his friend the senator from Southport. Among other labors 
of the session, he wrote and published a personal, mental, physical, 
political, present and prospective description of each senator and 
state officer. These likenesses ought to have been hung in the cap- 






LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 143 

itol, with the frame that contained their faces. His style and expres- 
sion betrayed him as the author, and some were offended at the bold- 
ness with which he told the truth about them. But fretting would 
only serve to prove him correct, for he knew them well, having 
examined most of their heads ; and, being well read in phrenology, 
physiology, and psychology, and fully posted in politics, he had 
advantages that no other possessed in that body, and he used them 
when he chose to do so. One thing puzzled them all (except the 
brother), and that was, who wrote the description of the writer. 
They thought it was too severe to be his own hand. But this only 
proved that they did not know him as he did them. 

This was the graduating term of the Lone One. All his offices 
after this term were professorships. He certainly graduated with 
honors, for no man in the state was more popular with the people ; 
and had he not left the great democratic party, which alone had 
power to bestow offices for the state, he could have received any 
office in the state. And even with his change to the new and 
weak party, he would soon have risen to place and power, had 
he not abandoned the field of political labor. But he had seen 
enough of political intrigues, traffic, toil, and tricks, and was fully 
resolved to leave the arena to gladiators. His labors closed at 
the capitol, and the affairs at home once more arranged, the preju- 
diced members of the Phalanx guessed he would stay at home 
now, as he belonged to a party that could not elect him to office. 

In '49 he attended the conventions of the " Free-Soil " party — 
ever the champion of Land Reform especially ; and, in the cam- 
paign of that fall, he received the nomination of his party for 
governor, and its vote, which brought him the vote of two large 
counties in the south part of the state, Racine and Wallworth, 
and gave him more than both his opponents in his own town, and 
left him, at the canvass, at the head of his ticket, in numbers as 
well as position. But this was honor minus profits and duties. 

At the assembling of the session for '50, a necessary alteration 
in the charter of the Phalanx, to enable them to close their affairs, 
and settle their own estate, brought him again to the capitol, 



144 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

when the farce of the lobby, so long kept up, of choosing a sove- 
reign governor, called him to the place, and gave him a chance to 
deliver a satirical message, which took the veil off some persons 
and events, and pointed like a significant hand for some politi- 
cians a way to oblivion, or " salt river." Some idea of the effect 
may be gained from the fact that a neighbor, to whom he gave the 
manuscript, sold in three days copies, in pamphlet, to the amount 
of one hundred dollars, in the capitol. He soon secured the 
amendment to his charter, and returned home ; for he could never 
be found long where he had no business, and his business was now 
in settling the estate of the Phalanx. He prepared a new and 
greatly abbreviated form of blank deed for his use, and, as notary 
public, used them as long as he remained a citizen of Ceresco. 
In '51 he was again called to the capital to defend the name of the 
town against the proposed change to Bipon, which Captain Mapes 
and others attempted, who had now started a whiskey, beer, and 
tobacco village on the hill, and secured the services of a pettifogger 
from one corner of the town to get up law-suits. But the Lone One 
was chairman of the town board, and had most of the town officers 
on the side of Ceresco for a name. They of course prevented the 
change at that time, and for several years after. But the Bipon 
village was very much opposed to its more steady and sober 
neighbor in the valley, and kept up a constant strife, until the 
speculating Bipon at last outgrew and conquered its rival. But 
this was not till after the Lone One had ceased to make any 
efforts to sustain the valley home, and begun to look out a home 
elsewhere for his family. One more game, and we end this line 
of history, which does not connect well with the first or last 
chapter of the narrative. 

Fifty-two came. Again the national tocsm sound, To arms, ye 
politicians ! and the Lone One was registered as one of the vice- 
presidents of the National Convention at Pittsburg, and one of its 
speakers also. From thence he returned, received a nomination as 
one of the electors on the Hale and Julian ticket, and again came 
off with honors only ; for at the canvass the David and Jonathan 



LIFE-LINE OF. THE LONE ONE. 145 

— for both were on it — - found their names had led the ticket, 
although the preacher at Ceresco had stricken them off, because 
they were believers in spiritual life, from evidences which he did 
not possess. This was the last game, and closed the political 
career of the Lone One. On counting up, he found himself six 
by honors and nothing by tricks, and concluded he was not a good 
player, and had better abandon the game forever. 

" Only in lowly places sleep 

Life's flowers of sweet perfume, 
And they who climb Fame's mountain steep 
Must mourn their own high doom." 

But, 

.... "Fortune at her will bestows 
On mortal works the appointed close ; 
And sometimes have the better men, 
Through guile of worse, supplanted been." 

Like the father of our country, on one occasion, the Lone One 
was now between the two contending armies, and received the 
shots and abuse of both ; and of course it was a glorious place to 
die a political death, and be buried with honors. 

Section III. 

AFFECTIONAL DEVELOPMENT. 

We cannot better introduce this section and subject than by the 
following beautiful unpublished gem, from the pen of Mrs. F. 0. 
Hyzer, of Vermont, entitled Love : 

" That impulse rising in the soul 

"Which needeth form or chain 
Its warm outgushings to control, 

"Which reason must restrain, 
Lest it should make defrauding claim, 
I would not clothe with Love's sweet name. 

13 



146 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

sc I would not call that Love which could 
Be poisoned, marred, or stained ; 
Which could by any wealth be bought, 

By any power be chained ; 
Which could not take unerring flight, 
Guided by its own magnets bright. 

sc 0, no, thou pearl-winged dove, go forth I 
I 'd scorn to check thy flight ; 
Soar onward wheresoe'er thou wilt, 

Where'er thou wilt, alight; 
I know thine own God-given powers 
Will guide thee to celestial bowers, 

" Go forth in freedom, — seek no guide, 
Save that deep pulse within, 
Which swelleth like the ocean-tide, 
Where thou hast found thy kin. 
Then fill thy cup with bliss divine, — 
Thou canst not drink what is not thine* 

" Trust thy attractions, and in turn 

Attract whate'er thou wilt; 

I know that in thy nature burns 

No flame of lust or guilt ; 
Thou couldst fold up thy wings, and rest 
Within the purest angel's breast. 

" When man can make the new-born spring 
Withhold her fragrant breath, 
Or the eternal spirit bring 
An offering unto death, 
Then thy white wing may feel the chain 
Which now is forged for thee in vain. 

" Go forth ! Enraptured I behold 

Thee spread thy snowy wing ; 

So will I love the fragrant dews 

Thou e'er dost from it fling. 
Go ! naught can bind thee, spirit-dove ; — 
Wert thou not free, thou wert not Love." 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 147 

The unfolding of the affections, in the ripened years of man or 
womanhood, is not often the gist of a novel, but it may form a 
part of a life-line, and it must certainly have a place in this ; but, of 
all subjects to talk or write upon, the subject of the affections and 
the relation of the sexes is the most delicate and difficult. This 
arises mainly from the fact that few persons have any heart-love, 
or pure affection, but in its place have a passional and sexual 
love only; and such persons ever judge others by themselves, 
measure others by their own ritheous rule, and of course cannot 
appreciate the motives or feelings of those whose souls have been 
touched by a living coal from the altar of celestial and pure love. 
Much of this is owing to a want of proper respect for woman 
as woman, equal with man, both in, and out of, marriage. 
When she is properly educated, made more free and equal to 
man, she will become far less the object of lust, and more the 
companion and associate, and have a greater influence in elevating 
and refining the too often polluted and lustful partners, now so 
often the tyrants, instead of true husbands and fathers, as they 
should be. It was not until the tobacco, pork, and coffee, had 
been turned out of the diet, and the mind had been schooled in 
studies of physiology, and moral and mental science, that the 
Lone One began to discover his own position and condition, and 
the relation he bore to others, both of his household and the 
world. A new fountain of feeling burst forth within him, higher, 
holier, purer, and more devoted, than he ever felt or knew before. 
As it increased in power, it restrained the animal and passional 
impulses, and craved food congenial to its own nature, purely 
spiritual and affectional. How could the poor victim of poverty and 
disease, child-bearing and hard labor, with whom he had journeyed 
long, but whose advantages had been less favorable than his own, 
reach this condition as soon as he did, and respond to the demands 
of his ardent soul in its new requirements ? Of course she could 
not, and did not, and the demand of his soul was, in this higher 
department of its nature, responded to by another, far more ad- 
vanced than himself in the purest and holiest aspirations of the 



148 LIFE-LINE OP THE LONE ONE. 

soul, and led onward and upward by her. But outwardly she was 
far more unhappily situated than himself. Between them ran a 
current of written correspondence for several years of as pure lan- 
guage and ideas as were ever expressed in written words ; and 
never was there a purer, more reserved, chaste, and truly mental 
correspondence carried on between two mortals than between 
these two. Seldom did they see each other, and when they did 
meet their meeting was public, and of the most chaste and 
reserved delicacy. Any other would have disgusted her or 
repulsed him. It has ever been designed by the Lone One to 
publish a volume of this correspondence, and it has been preserved 
for that purpose ; for it contains many gems of pure thought, 
and much philosophy of the present and future life, worthy an 
extensive reading. The change in him was not understood by the 
mate, and of course was attributed to a wrong cause, nor could 
he explain it to her ; for her time and condition of appreciation 
had not yet arrived. Deep and terrible trials were yet awaiting 
her, from which, in due time, she was to come as one from great 
tribulation, having her robes washed and white in the trials of 
martyrs to reform. I am aware that it will be casting " pearls 
before swine " to say much of this holiest subject in all our nature, 
in this book, or elsewhere ; but it is due to truth and justice in 
the narrative to give the causes of the highest and holiest de- 
velopment of the moral, social, and affectional nature in the sub- 
ject of the narrative, and certainly no one cause contributed so 
much as the language and influence of this noble lady. 

" Met her when the bridal wreath 

Had long been withered from her brow ; 
When she had learned no love had breathed 

In the words of her marriage vow. 
Her heart unwon, her hand she gave 

To one who knew its value not, — 
Buried beneath a living grave 

Love which yet knew no happier lot ! " 

Unfortunately, as it then seemed, — but fortunately, as it after- 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 149 

ward proved, — on one occasion, after this delicate and refined corres- 
pondence had continued for years, — every word of which might be 
published in connection, with the willing consent of both parties, — 
one of her letters was opened, through mistake, at his home, in his 
absence ; and, being left on the desk, by foul means was stolen by- 
some neighbor before he returned, or ever saw it, and placed in 
the hands of a priest of Beelzebub, who copied it to suit his pur- 
pose, with as many interpolations as the Gospel of St. John has, 
and sent it floating around the country to prove this Infidel, Fou- 
rierite, and Spiritualist, was more licentious than himself, when his 
own wife had been compelled by his brutal lusts to flee with her 
babe to her own paternal home for protection. This furnished 
him an ample subject for slander and gossip, and kept the public 
inquiry from his own case for a while. It was also a glorious 
event for the pettifogging doggery lawyer of Ripon, who had a 
suffering victim with marks of his treatment that pointed to the 
grave-yard, and in whose power no decent female would be safe, 
unless guarded by others. The garbled copies of the letter 
reached, probably, near fifty in number, or perhaps more ; but it 
was never published, because that would show it was in and of the 
most pure and chaste subject, and language. But allusions were 
made to it in many slanderous newspaper articles, as started by 
the pettifogger and preacher. 

The great stories of the preacher, who was prolific in words, 
soon led some persons to seek out the female, and discover that 
nearly the whole of his stories were lies. But he was gone — he 
had left his sting, and fled, like the wasp. His church and false- 
hoods fell with him. This pressure of public prejudice bore hard 
on the inside of the little home ; for now she feared that her con- 
jectures were true, and that his real and true affections had strayed 
from his home. But, 0, how little did she know of him in this 
her trial-hour ! But when the sunlight burst upon her, as it did 
soon after this, 0, what a glorious morn of the purer and holier 
day, which has ever since been brightening into its noon ! But 
the Lone One was not alone in this trial-time ; for he had many 
13* 



150 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

true and warm friends, who knew his life and motives were as far 
above the licentious rabble as the sun above a glow-worm ; and 
they obtained, as near as possible, a true copy of the original let- 
ter, and easily proved to the candid there was neither improper 
nor unchaste language in it. But the circumstance came near 
breaking the sensitive heart of the author, whose soul was as sin- 
less as an angel in this and all her acts, and as far above the 
brutes who abused her as the angels are above them. 

" A whisper woke the air — 
A soft, light tone, and low, 
Yet barbed with shame and woe ; 
Now might it only perish there, 
Nor further go ! 

" Ah, me ! a quick and eager ear 

Caught up the little meaning sound ! 

Another voice has breathed it clear, 
And so it wanders round 

From ear to lip, from lip to ear, 

Until it reached a gentle heart, 
And that — it broke ! 

" It was the only heart it found, 
The only heart 't was meant to find, 

When first its accents woke ; 
It reached that tender heart at last, 
And that — it broke ! 

' ' Low as it seemed to other ears, 

It came a thunder-crash to hers — 
* # * # 

'Tis said a lovely humming-bird, 
That in a fragrant lily lay, 
And dreamed the summer morn away, 

Was killed by but a gun's report, 

Some idle boy had fired in sport — 
The very sound a death-blow came ! " 

This letter, magnified into scores, and even hundreds, by report, 
also formed the basis for magnifying the pure and most valuable 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 151 

correspondence he ever carried on with a mortal into a constant 
stream of letters from scores of women, which the vulgar and licen- 
tious were now sure he retained over the country, amounting to a 
concubinage nearly equal to that of the wise Solomon. But the 
stories ran till they ran themselves out, or broke of their own 
weight. But the correspondence was continued for some years 
after this, and until its mission to both hearts was completed. 
When it ended he was far more pure in soul and heart, and she 
not less — (for she could not be more) — than when it begun ; and 
certainly he was never less, but ever more, attached and devoted 
to his home and family, through all this growth and development 
of his higher affectional nature. 

" 5 Tis bitter to endure the* wrong 

Which evil hands and tongues commit, 

The bold encroachments of the strong, 
The shafts of calumny and wit — 

The scornful bearing of the proud, 

The sneers and laughter of the crowd. 

44 And harder still it is to bear 

The censure of the good and wise, 
Who, ignorant of what you are, 

Or branded by the slanderer's lies, 
Look coldly on, or pass you by 
In silence, with averted eye. 

*' But when the friends in whom your trust 
Was steadfast as the mountain rock 
Fly, and are scattered as the dust 

Before misfortune's whirlwind shock, 
Nor love remains to cheer your fall — 
This is more terrible than all ! 

* s But even this, and these, — ay, more, — 
Can be endured, and hope survive ; 
The noble spirit still may soar, 

Although the body fails to thrive : 
Disease and want may wear the frame — 
Thank God ! the soul is still the same ! 



152 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

" Hold up your head, thou man of grief ! 

No longer to the tempest bend ; 
For soon or late must come relief — 

The coldest, darkest night will end. 
Hope in the true heart never dies ; 

mi on, the day-star yet shall rise ! 

onscious of purity and worth, 
You may with calm assurance wait 
The tardy recompense of earth ; 

And, e'en should justice come too late 
To soothe the spirit's homeward flight, 
Heaven at last the wrong shall right." 

Through this correspondence his soul's highest and holiest affec- 
tions were cultivated, expanded, and ripened, like the flowers of 
June under the glowing sunlight. His heart grew rich in fra- 
grance and purity, and shed its influence on others; thus rend:r- 
ing himself still more and more an object of suspicion, jealousy, 
and gossip for the wicked and corrupt, who could see no motive 
for any man to converse or correspond with females except a 
lustful or licentious one, as none other could prompt such acts in 
themselves. Little did they know how much he pitied their con- 
dition, and deplored their depravity. But they could not be 
lifted, except by long years of " prayer and fasting,^ from their 
slavish and brutal conditions. Therefore he resolved to labor in 
the field where more congenial sunlight shone around the homes ; 
and for that purpose sought, far and near, the spot to which he 
could move his family, and have a society of congenial beings 
where his mate could unfold her higher and purer nature, which 
was even more elastic than his own, and more depressed than his 
had been, but which he knew would soon or late come up to the 
surface of life. 

In travelling he found many friends, and usually the best of 
them among the most refined, and educated, and developed 
females. With several of these he carried on, more or less regu- 
larly, correspondence, until the accumulation would fill several 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 153 

large volumes ; much of which, with changes, is still continued. 
The present wife of A. J. Davis was among those with whom 
he corresponded in her days of trial, and a purer soul than hers 
never uttered words through human lips; and she, with many 
others who could be named, can bear testimony to the nature and 
character of his letters, and they ever will when called upon to do 
so. No female voice ever charged him with wrong act or motive 
to herself, or in her own knowledge; for all the slanders were 
inverted mirage, groundless, without facts, and mainly rested on 
the fatal letter. No suit, civil or criminal, was ever commenced 
against him on earth or in heaven, neither here nor in the here- 
after. He had more and warmer friends, and more bitter enemies, 
than any one in the state ; and there was a reason for it, and that 
reason lay in his own nature and capacities of soul. When the 
" Uncle Tom's Cabin " for married women shall be written, as it 
surely will, the readers will find the Lone One was among the 
number whose sympathies, at least, were ever with the sufferers, 
and not for selfish but for beneficent purposes, as many already 
know ; for many a sad heart can say, with one of his corres- 
pondents : 

" I had labored to make my garden fair, 
But the river of love was not flowing there, 
And the flowers I tilled had a poisonous breath. 
That fell on my heart like the dews of death ; 
Still hope would toil on, o'er the deep lines of care, 
And the sadness so mournfully resting there 
Told plainly I struggled to conquer despair." 

The political and associational history both close in this fourth 
decade ; but the social, the affectional, and the one yet to be taken 
up, the spiritual, all run into the next, and no doubt far beyond 
this volume into the future, to " no one knows where," but surely 
to the hereafter. Up to the January of 1 53, where this chapter 
must end, the light of a glorious development of soul in its high- 
est affections had not burst in upon the mate of the Lone One ; 



154 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

but, like the ice under March winds and suns, the crust was begin- 
ning to soften, and air-holes for the pent-up soul to breathe were 
occasional, and plainly his rejoicing soul saw the signs of its 
approaching summer-time. For well he knew the hardest ice 
must yield to spring, and the darkest cloud pass over. 

"0, who the exquisite delights can tell, 
The joy which mutual confidence imparts ? 
Or who can paint the joy unspeakable 
Which links in tender bands two faithful hearts? " 

" The shaken tree grows faster at the root ; 
And love grows firmer for some blasts of doubt." 

How few, very few, know, or rather feel, the true, and holy, 
and pure affection for each other in married life that really 
belongs to the conjugal condition of the soul ! Most married par- 
ties live only domestically and sexually together, but affectionally 
are utter strangers. Nor, indeed, can any person live in, or enjoy, 
the holy and noble affection of which his nature is capable, while 
love is merely sexual. Persons who do not love each other with- 
out the relation which marriage places them in to each other can 
never do it in such relation. Most persons who have reached 
the plane of spiritual development are happy in any relation of 
life, provided they are not made the victims of lust, or the slaves 
of brutal partners, who tyrannize over them and whose love is 
only lust or ambition. 

" I have commingled with the throng, 
In the wide world's ceaseless strife ; 
Have listened to the endless song 

That marks the onward course of life ; 
Have heard the earnest words they spoke, 

And conned their hidden object o'er, 
Till on my mind the light has broke, 
' This it is, and nothing more. ' ' ' 

" No man caring for his brother, 

Struggling after this world's pelf, 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 155 

Each one trampling down the other, 
Each one striving for himself. 

" Ay, I have stood within the hall 

Where beauty's triumphs are achieved, 
Saw but two parties midst them all, 

And both deceiving and deceived ; 
Have heard of Love's thrice-woven bond, 

And vows repeated -o'er and o'er ; 
But, searching for the light beyond, 
8 This it is, and nothing more : ' 
Each betraying one another, 

In the object they pursue ; 
Each one caring for the other 

As it pleased them so to do. 

" And if I sometimes stood apart 

From the thronging multitude, 
And felt how welcome to my heart 

Were a lonely solitude ; 
Asked my soul why this suggestion, 

And eager conned it o'er and o'er, 
Found but one answer to my question, 
1 This it is, and nothing more : ' 
Each is some one else deceiving, 

In the world's tumultuous strife, 
Those the greatest share achieving 

Who make deceit the aim of life ; 
Each betraying one another, 

Be the object love or pelf ; 
No one caring for the other, 

Each one striving for himself." 

There were some pure, true, honest, and warm hearts in the 
valley of Ceresco, who ever shielded and sustained the sensitive 
spirit of the Lone One ; and there were also other " vile, unhal- 
lowed ones," and it was not difficult to sort them by any rule, 
either by actions or mode of living, or by phrenological laws ; 
for all these agreed, and told very much the same story. But a 
dark cloud was hanging over the place in '52 and '53, with 



156 LIFE-LINE 0¥ THE LONE ONE. 

drenching rain and beating hail ; and the Lone One had already 
begun to seek other shelter, but had not found it, for the tender 
family still under his care. His government over his children 
had entirely changed ; for now his authority was given only in 
love, and the often harsh and sometimes severe authority which 
the eldest had felt was now mild and pleasant, though strong 
and firm ; and the elder boy, whose mind was now unfolded to 
"an appreciation of these things, saw, and felt, and wondered at 
the change, but knew not the cause, yet knew well the effect. 
This eldest son was born September 1, 1837, and the youngest 
and last child God sent to the family on the second of February, 
1848. Some old lady asked, one day, how they knew this was 
the last Grod would send ; and they informed her that he left a 
note to that effect in the basket with the babe, when he brought 
it. Eleven years of such experience as this couple had, with five 
babies mixed in with poverty, disease, and misery, and the death 
of two of them, is plenty of that kind of experience, especially 
when a reform in the father would require him to cooperate with 
the mother in trying to eradicate the effects of the tobacco, coffee, 
and pork, from the nervous children, who must have inherited it, 
as all children do, more or less, in such cases, causing in them 
restless, irritable, and nervous dispositions and habits. Well he 
knew he had a work to do, and faithfully began the work of reno- 
vation in the children, both physical and mental regeneration 
and reformation. • . 

It must be borne in mind that while these events were passing 
in the last half of this decade, that the political line was running 
its race, and the important business of the Phalanx was also on 
his mind, and the Union Store, and his private affairs of business ; 
and yet, as the diary showeth, the social and affectional develop- 
ment at this time, for himself and family, was the most important, 
and pressed most heavily on his mind and heart, and in the end 
brought the most reward ; indeed, more than all other, except the 
line we have not yet taken up. In '50 the Lone One came very 
near forming a copartnership with his old friend, the senator, and 






LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 157 

starting, or purchasing, a paper at the county seat, and going, 
then and there, into new business. The friend had long been an 
editor, and was a printer by profession ; and the Lone One was 
now quite an extensive writer, and for several varieties of papers, 
and found his letters read with much interest, as they ever have 
been since. He felt much the need of a classical education. It 
was well for him that the scheme failed in its incipiency, for a far 
more important mission awaited his development for its reception 
and demands. 

The diary of the year 1850 showeth that the Lone One was 
President of the Annual Session of the National Industrial Con- 
gress, holden for that year at Chicago, in June ; and that he made 
speeches there, and elsewhere, in which he, as he ever had, 
defended the rights of females to all and equal privileges with males. 
All these were only signs, to the conservative and lustful minds, 
of his licentiousness. But the greatest of all opposition came from 
his old and never-forgiving religious enemies, who were deter- 
mined, at whatever cost of falsehood or slander, to destroy his 
influence, and they labored unceasingly to accomplish it ; but in 
vain, as the sequel shows. 

Sunday, June 14, 1850, the journal notices a lecture of his on 
woman's rights, before the Excelsior Church, in Southport; and 
others, on this and kindred subjects, in other places, all showing 
an affectional tendency and development. The mental capacity 
had now become so strong that it needed constant employment ; 
and subjects were handled by him with skill and power, both by 
speech and pen. His manhood was fast unfolding itself. West- 
ward from the valley home, about one mile, was a high and perpen- 
dicular limestone cliff, overlooking a large meadow, the lake, and 
much country below and beyond. On this cliff many Sabbaths, 
and some other days, were spent by the Lone One. It was often, 
and for years, the retreat and resort for reading and writing ; and 
many a pencil-note was made on that beautiful and romantic 
retreat. It was not only the favorite retreat of the Lone One, 
but of many others. Skirted by a few shade-trees, which served 
14 



158 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

as a border to the prairie on one side, and towering above the 
tops of the trees on the other. Several times the Lone One has 
spent the stormy hours under the cliff, in spiritual development, 
or deep meditation ; and many a sunny hour on the top, under 
shade of oak or linden. He courted solitude (but never married 
her), when business would admit, and found her balmy shadow 
and cooling shade refreshing to his soul. 

" Enthusiast ! dreamer ! such the names 

Thine age bestows on thee, 
For that great nature, going forth 

In world-wide sympathy : 
For the vision clear, the spirit brave, 

The honest heart and warm, 
And the voice which swells the battle-cry 

For freedom and reform. 

" Yet for thy fearless manliness, 

When weak time-servers throng, — - 
Thy chivalrous defence of right, 

Thy bold rebuke of wrong, — 
And for the flame of liberty, 

Heaven-kindled in thy breast, 
Which thou hast fed like sacred fire, — ■ 

A blessing on thee rest ! 

" Tis said thy spirit knoweth not 
. Its times of calm and sleeping ; 
That ever are its restless thoughts 
Like wild waves onward leaping. 
Then may its flashing waters 
Be tranquil nevermore, — 
They are troubled by an angel, 
Like the sacred pool of yore." 

The subject of marriage he talked, wrote, and lectured upon, 
boldly and fearlessly speaking his mind on the subject, as if it was 
not too sacred for criticism. But this alarmed several classes of 
persons. First, and most, those who had victims of tyranny and 
lust, to whom they dared not have any rights or liberties extended, 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 159 

because they could not make the victims of their cruelty love them ; 
and if they lost legal control over their persons, they would rebel 
against the constant child-bearing and never-ceasing abuse of their 
bodies and souls. The second, and perhaps still more alarmed, 
but not as rabid, opponents to any reform in this department, 
were the religious bigots. But the Lone One contended that 
marriage should either be a civil contract or a religious rite, and 
in either case come under the general law of the department to 
which it belonged, and in no case give exclusive, or special, or 
superior rights to one party. That, if the husband owned the 
estate at the death of a wife, the wife should own it at the death 
of a husband. That, if the property of a wife was carried to a 
husband by the marriage, the husband's should follow the same 
law, and they should be joint and equal owners of all property and 
children while married, and both equitably divided at parting; 
and that, if either had superior right to children, it should be the 
wife and mother. That all contracts of this nature, entered into 
by mutual consent and agreement, should be subject to the power 
that created them ; and of course they should have power to dis- 
solve the contract, in the same manner they formed it, mutually, 
and by public record. Of course, these radical sentiments, the 
right of men and women to separate what God had joined in wed- 
lock, and what he could only separate by death, alarmed the 
classes above named ; and the anathemas of the religious, and the 
vulgar ribald trash of the pettifogger, and his rowdy legion, both 
fell, thick and fast, on the Lone One. He was branded, and stig- 
matized, and identified with every person, writer, or speaker, of 
offensive and obscene words or books; and heralded from " Dan to 
Beersheba" as an enemy to marriage, and all sacred institutions, 
by those whose hearts, if not homes, were full of " yellow-covered 
literature." Bat the Lone One knew the cost of defending such 
reforms, and took the job at the price, conscious of justice at the 
end of life, if not before. Well he knew there would be a day 
of judgment, and that God and pure spirits were both free, and 
both happy ; so he should find himself in their mansion when this 



160 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

life was over, and the defenders of lust, and scorn, and envy, and 
jealousy, and those who took delight in them, would be bound in 
the hells of their own creation, with the effects of their own sins 
on themselves, for " their works do follow them." 

" There are flowers that ne'er shall wither, 
Blossoms that shall ne'er decay : 
They are found beyond this planet, 

In the realms of endless day. 
If you fain would taste these flowers, 
Blooming in immortal bowers — 

Bear the Cross. 

" There are hopes that never crumble — 
Lustrous hopes that ne'er shall die — 
Hopes that bud upon this fair earth, 

But which ripen 'yond the sky. 
If these hopes, that ne'er shall perish, 
You desire to have and cherish — 

Bear the Cross. 

" There are friends who live forever — 
Friends whom Death hath sent before 
Through the dark and silent valley, 

To a far sublimer shore. 
Would ye have these friends forever 
By your side, and leave them never — 
Bear the Cross. 

" There are never-dying pleasures — 
Pleasures sweet and holier far 
Than the bodiless enjoyments 
Which around about us are. 
Do you wish to find these pleasures, 
These celestial, priceless treasures — 
Bear the Cross. 

" There are bright and fadeless beauties, 
Constellated by God's hand, 
Where the gentle waves of music 
Flood with melody a land. 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 161 

If you fain would see these beauties, 
Never trifle with life's duties — 

Bear the Cross. 

" There are never-clouded glories — 
Glories robed in holy awe ; 
There are splendors that are grander 
Than this world of ours e'er saw. 
Would you, when your life-ties sever 
Gaze upon these glories ever — 

Bear the Cross. 

" There 's a life which ne'er shall slumber — 
There are blisses blent with love ; 
And, if you be ever faithful, 

You '11 experience them above, 
Where, when cometh Death's to-morrow, 
You shall, purged of every sorrow, 

Wear a Crown." 

But there dawned to his heart a millennial day earlier, but not 
more surely, than to his mate. Several years after his emancipa- 
tion, she, too, was free from " custom's heartless forms," and from 
the scorn-storm of jealousy, prejudice, and envy, and they met and 
lived on that plane of mutual love, mutual confidence, mutual 
purity, and mutual interest. Then, and only then, did life become 
worth the cost. Through all the previous years, they had been 
tenants, living in leased hearts, which were often full of vice and 
evil, from the hell of theology, or the sleet-showers of scorn, or the 
dazzling bewilderment of popularity and pride. But now the home 
was in their own affections, and they met congenial and equally 
developed souls ; and with such the seasons of enjoyment were of 
the holiest, and purest, and most heavenly of earth. 

But this was a fearful condition to attain ; for whosoever has a 
soul developed to that condition that he or she is lovable, and 
beloved by the pure and good of earth and heaven, is sure to be 
ranked as a fiend of hell, and holy writ and doggery-slang will 
both be quoted to prove it. Whoever attains to a condition even 
approaching the love of Jesus, so far as to draw and attract others 
14* 



162 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

who need to be saved from lust and pollution, from slavery and 
tyranny, from degradation and defilement, is sure to have his or her 
reputation crucified in the market-places daily, and to be scourged 
with the basest tongues of slander that a self-styled Christian land 
can furnish. When his affections were expanded, and his soul 
developed to the sphere of harmony, and the angels came to min- 
ister to him, and. those of earth nearest in condition to the angels 
were drawn to him, and became his friends and confidants — then 
was the time when every effort was put forth by the wicked to 
induce her who had struggled with him through the dark trials of 
physical suffering to desert him. Every effort of the pious, and 
polluted, neighbors combined to persuade her that he had abandoned 
her and was full of lust, as they really were themselves ; but they 
did not persuade, and their oft-renewed and extraordinary efforts 
tended, more than any one cause, to open her eyes. Slowly, but 
gradually, they opened, and she' saw first the condition and objects of 
those around her ; then her own condition ; and then the light shone 
plainly on his — and, ! what an earthly morning ! equalled only 
by the glory of an entrance into the other sphere ! Love supreme, 
heavenly, pure, such as her heart had never known before, filled 
her whole being, till, like a ruby cup, it overflowed, and filled her 
soul with joy and gladness immeasurable, unspeakable, and the 
boundless ocean has been flowing through her being ever since. 
But what now ? Why, she drew around her, like the magnet, the 
objects attracted by her pure heart, and the pure loved her every- 
where, as they did the Lone One; and the vile cast her off, 
spewed her out as the whale did Jonah, as related in the fable ; 
but, like him, she landed safely on dry land, and the angels of both 
spheres came and ministered to her wants. She — they — found 
the good Samaritans ; and when the slanders were coming hottest 
and heaviest, there was not a family in the state, of which one or 
all were members of a church, that was as happy, as harmonious, 
as affectionate, as devoted, as the family of the Lone One ; nor is 
there " to this day," and when any Christian will present such a 
family we will engage to seek religion in that direction. Her over- 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 163 

flowing soul drinks now from a source of joy and love, which affords 
her more happiness in one day than all the world ever afforded her 
before in years ; and the two, with the three beloved and loving 
children, make a five-stranded chord to lash the liars round the 
world, and would do it effectually did they not take shelter in 
the churches, where lying for the glory of the church is a pro- 
tected virtue. He is no more a Lone One ; for his own home is the 
happy home, and his family a unit (and it was never less so than 
most other families, especially Christian families), and he is loved 
and beloved, as a brother, by thousands in both worlds, because 
his own love-nature is ripened and developed to its manhood, and 
has been touched by a coal from the living fire of the altar of God, 
which is the throne of Love. 

" Ah ! shouldst thou live but once Love's sweets to prove, 
Thou wilt not love to live, unless thou live to love ! " 

Section IV. 

THE CHANGE OF BELIEF. SPIRITUALISM. MEDIUMSHIP. TURNED 

PREACHER. 

" Imbued with the seraphic fire, 
To wake the music of the lyre — 
To love, to know, and to aspire : — 

" Thou seest, in thy truthful dream, 
All nature robed in light supreme, 
And wouldst carol in the beam. 

" Happy — yet most unhappy still — 
I dread to think what good and ill, 
What joy and grief, thy heart shall fill ! 

" Think, ere thou choose such high career, 
If thou hast strength to persevere, 
And scale the summit, cold and clear. 

" Great shall thy pleasure be, — thy soul 
Shall chant with planets as they roll, 
Made one with nature, part and whole. 



164 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

i6 All shall be given to feed thy mind 
"With love and pity for thy kind, 
And every sympathy refined. 

" Thy words shall fill the months of men ; 
The written lightnings of thy pen 
Shall flash upon their wandering ken. 

" Reflect and weigh the loss and gain ; 
All joy is counterpoised by pain, 
And nothing charms which we attain. 

" Who loves the music of the spheres, 
And lives on earth, must close his ears 
To many voices which he hears. 

" 'Tis evermore the finest sense 
That feels the anguish most intense 
At daily outrage, gross and dense. 

" The greater joy, the keener grief; 
Of nature's balances the chief 
She grants nor favor, nor relief. 

" And vain, most vain, is youthful trust, 
For men are evermore unjust 
To their superior fellow-dust ; 

" And ever turn malicious eyes 
On those whom most they idolize, 
And break their hearts with calumnies. 

" Their slanders, like the tempest-stroke, 
May leave the cowslip-stem unbroke, 
But rend the branches of the oak. 

" If genius live, 'tis made a slave ; 
And if it die, the true and brave, 
Men pluck its heart out on its grave ; 

" And then dissect it for the throng, 

And say, 'Twas this, so weak, or strong, 
That poured such living strains of song. 

" Each fault of genius is a crime, 
For cant or folly to beslime, 
Sent drifting on the stream of time. 






LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 165 

" May all good angels keep thy heart 
Pure to itself, and to thine art, 
And shield it from the poison dart ! — 

" And when thou sittest on the height, 
Thy life may be its own delight, 
And cheer thee, in the world's despite • " 

As has been before mentioned, the Lone One began in the winter 
of '43 and '44 to experimentally investigate the subject of Mesmer- 
ism. With a steady, but sure, march he progressed, as opportunity 
offered, for several years, to both study and experiment with this 
science, until the doubts which hung over the phenomenon of 
death and the existence beyond were all clearly and fully settled. 
The first point of importance, fully and positively established both 
by experiment and testimony, was the existence of a faculty of 
seeing without the use of bodily eyes, and unobstructed by distance 
or intervening objects. The origin and seat of this faculty was a 
subject of much speculation to one who did not admit the exist- 
ence of a spiritual body, with faculties of its own, and powers of 
seeing independent of the bodily organs ; and finally compelled, with 
other evidences, the admission of an existence independent of 
physical or corporeal senses. But the utterly absurd idea of an 
immaterial existence, or of a being without form and locality, was 
never for a moment tolerated, however much dogmatical theology 
might assert or assume on the subject. When this point was fully 
gained, and the seeing faculty of clairvoyants had been established, 
and the laws which regulate it were sufficiently understood to enable 
him to know when it was reliable, then opened another arcana of 
" divine revelation." This sense, without the body as a medium 
(except to express it to others), and the others which were found 
to be equally acute and extended, and equally certain of existence, 
declared that and proved they could reach and realize the presence 
and existence of spirits who were really the very persons who once 
walked and talked with us, but whose bodies had been cast off for- 
ever, and whose conscious existence the Lone One ever had 
believed to end with death. Theology had taught him that this 



166 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

was the only material life, and that all beyond was immaterial ; 
and he had therefore replied, It is immaterial what you teach, and 
immateriality and nothing are to me and philosophy synonymous 
terms. 

But now, with new evidence, came a new theory also, and the 
spirits themselves declared that they were as really material as 
they were when they had earthly bodies, or bodies composed of 
the solids and liquids of earth, but that their present bodies were 
constituted of elemental matter, in as great variety as those of 
earth were ; and that these bodies, invisible and intangible to our 
bodies, because composed of such substances as were too rare for 
our sense, were to them as capable of expression for all emotional 
and passional life, and conscious existence, as those they had 
left. But here, again, came in the absurdities of theology, and they 
asked, What and where is God, Jesus, Heaven, the Judgment, 
Hell, and the King-Devil, &c. ? — and the reply came back from 
these spirits, as it came back from mortals on the earth, We know 
nothing of these things, but we believe, &c. ; making as great a 
variety of opinion in that condition of life as in this, and just as 
little knowledge. Now the glorious truth of the other life began 
to gleam upon the mind of the Lone One ; first in the fitful glare 
of lightning's flash, or gentler lume of boreal light, until, at last, 
through all the faculties of his being the full glory of a real 
and natural spiritual sphere shone as brilliantly as a meridian 
sun through unclouded sky, and quickened all his powers into 
action, as the April sun does the sleeping vegetation. Here you 
read also one of the principal causes of the reformation in his 
diet and regimen, in life and affections, as related in preceding 
sections. The long-dormant energies of the soul, that felt this 
life a failure, and saw none beyond, — that felt mortality to be a 
" wheel of pain, at best," — now had opened the volume of another 
life, or a continuation of this, where those who labor here shall 
see and feel their just reward. Now his energies were ready for 
action. First, the Phalanx was the result of this awakened energy. 
Then political efforts at reform, emancipation, and universal free- 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 167 

dom and happiness ; then commercial release of the masses from 
the bondage and slavery to monopolies. Then social and affectional 
freedom, and development to universal love and harmony. Then, 
and finally, spiritual freedom, growth, development, and illumina- 
tion. The preacher, the reformer. In the winter of '45-6, the 
experiments of a company of investigators, in Cincinnati, with 
one or more clairvoyants, were closely followed by the Lone One 
and several others at the Phalanx-home, and they were also 
deeply interested in all they could learn of the wonderful powers 
of A. J. Davis, in New York and elsewhere. They learned, by 
occasional newspaper reports, of his delivering a series of lectures 
in a clairvoyant state, which were said to be rare and very remark- 
able productions, but not fraught with marvellous stories, for such 
to the Lone One would have ended all interest in them. But 
these were said to be natural, or nature's revelations ; and hence 
he became intensely interested in them, and with much impatience 
watched every week for a notice of the book, and no sooner 
received news of its publication than one dozen copies were 
ordered by express to Milwaukie, the end of the express line, by 
the secretary of the Phalanx, and most of them were read and 
re-read, lent and borrowed, sold and re-sold, until many minds were 
fed by these new truths, who could get no food from what Christians 
call God's revelations. The Lone One had now a firmer and more 
substantial basis for his lectures and strictures than ever before, 
and he boldly took up the defence of this book, — of its philosophy, 
in the main, and the truly divine manner of its revelations, — and 
with his senator-friend, who was also up to the time in the philos- 
ophy. He ever had one or more copies with him at the capitol, to 
call out remarks and ridicule, and give him a chance to defend it, 
and compare it with Moses' revelation, &c. Although there were 
some theories and principles in this volume that he did not accept, 
and never has, yet the candor of the author, or authors, and the 
honest, unassuming style of the seer, gave the whole an irresist- 
ible recommendation to the mind of the Lone One. The vast 
amount of truth, with the natural, and rational, general systems of 



168 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

creation, of life, and of progression, and of harmony, was to his 
soul like a shower of rain to a parched and thirsting soil. He 
drank, and was filled. He spoke, and was heard. He recom- 
mended, and some read. But the author, A. J. D., became an 
object of great interest to the Lone One, and ever after he was 
among the first to read whatever bore his name, and to watch 
with intense interest every change in his eventful life. Some 
years after, he became a personal and intimate friend and cola- 
borer in the field, scattering seed for the harvest-time. Sowing in 
corruption, to reap in incorruption. Sowing in the body, to reap 
in the spirit. Sowing in mortality, to reap in immortality. From 
'46 to '53 the Lone One was only occasionally heard, by lecture 
or by newspaper article, to defend the existence of spirits in our 
midst, with capacities to reach us with intelligence occasionally, 
as conditions would admit. His own mind being fully satisfied, he 
sometimes spoke or wrote. Chosen by a society of spirit-teachers, 
they had him under discipline and influence unbeknown to himself, 
of which the change of diet was a part, and the true development 
of the affections and loves was an essential qualification ; and 
some years after their work on him had commenced, they related 
to him all they had been doing, and its objects, and then he dis- 
covered the cause of his abandoning every field of labor where 
worldly honor and distinction was before him, and success almost 
certain, and the reason why he had let every opportunity to 
acquire wealth escape him, even when he knew it was within his 
reach by honorable means. Now he saw why he must be poor 
and full of human love ; for such must preach the true gospel of our 
age, as such did in the days of Jesus. It was necessary that Jesus 
should have nowhere to lay his head ; and so it was of his disci- 
ples who went out to preach ; and nearly so must it be with those 
who will, in our day, reach the hearts of the people, and kindle 
in them the living fire of love to God, by its expression to our 
fellow-beings. The pen-tracks of the Lone One can be found con- 
veying his sentiments in the Boston Investigator, the Phalanx, 
the Harbinger, the Univerccslum, the Spirit of the Age, the 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 169 

Young America, the Landmark, the Spirit Messenger, to the 
Spiritual Telegraph, and for some distance into its pages, and 
later in both eastern and western papers, with many local articles 
in local papers of the state in which he resided at the time. The 
Patent Office published from his pen, and the Crystal Palace, 
with its world's show-cases, registered him as one of the com- 
missioners from a far-west state ; but still, in all this, he was the 
Lone One, and the same orphaned and despised being, who fled 
from tyranny, and slept on the ground made warm by the bodies 
of cattle, with a guardian spirit-mother only for a friend and 
companion — she with little power, and much desire, to aid him. 
But now he had felt the touch of angel-hands upon his inner and 
outer being, and could read the past and present, and catch gleams 
of the future ; and to his mother he would truly say : 

" I know thy form is ever hovering 

In this gloom around me spread ; 
And I feel thy holy influence 

In the daily path I tread. 
Thine J s the step so soft and mournful 

Coming on each golden beam ; 
Thine 's the hand that gently pencils 

Holy visions in my dream. 

" Oft in low and soothing whispers, 

When my soul with grief is riven, 
Thou hast brought me golden beauties 

Of thy far-off home in heaven. 
This that stills the throbbing, burning 

Of this weary, aching heart, 
And unseals the crystal fountain 

Whence the soothing tear-drops start. 
" Through the vale of gloomy shadows, 

Be thou, loved one, ever nigh, 
And in thy low sweet accents tell me 

Of thy home in yon blue sky ! 
Pure, bright thoughts like dew-drops bring me, 

Shadowings of that land so fair ! 
That I may come, ! ask our Father 

Where thou, and love, and angels are ! " 
15 



170 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

The diary of the Lone One for the year 1850 closes by saying, 
that during the year he had made many experiments, and exam- 
ined carefully and critically the spirit-rapping and table-tipping 
phenomena, and become satisfied they were often caused by spirits, 
but very imperfect modes of conveyance for intelligence from the 
spirit-sphere to ours, with a fair prospect to become better and 
more reliable. The diaries of '50, '51, '52, also record lectures, 
at different places, on Phrenology, Physiology, Geology, Temper- 
ance, Land Reform, and other subjects. But never for pay, or as a 
business, until the autumn of '52, when most other business was dis- 
pensed with, and the dispensation of the new gospel absorbed his 
time, and he entered the field as a lecturer, mainly on spirit life 
and intercourse, and the philosophy of that life and our intercourse 
with it. 

The life and business at this time, at home, was very much/ 
broken and distracted, for many reasons, most of which can be 
collected in this narrative. And now the ties to both home and 
business could, perhaps, for the first time in life, allow the Lone 
One to start on a pilgrimage to defend the most odious and un- 
popular doctrine of the day, and to meet and bear the abuse and 
scorn of the pulpit, the press, the bar-room, and the rabble, with 
all their bloated, or bombastic, or swaggering advocates. Ev- 
ery species of crime, including religious tyranny, was out on this 
new doctrine ; and they did succeed in driving many timid hearts 
back to the shelter of public opinion, which could and did cover 
the most corrupt as well as many good and true hearts. But the 
Lone One owed nothing to public opinion. It had abused him 
in childhood as badly as it could, and had never ceased its abuse 
of him, although he had fully and plainly proved that he could 
control itj if he desired, and have its adulation and applause, if 
he would but fall down and worship. Nothing else was required 
of him ; yet his soul could never "stoop to conquer," nor would it 
ever bow down to the image which any tyrant could set up. 
Boldly, fearlessly, he took his staff and travelled on, lecturing and 
to lecture, picking up here and there a few dimes, about equal to 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 171 

his expenses in amount, as the voluntary contributions of hearers 
or friends. Never disheartened or discouraged, for he had a sure 
promise of reward in the life to come for all the good he could do 
in the life already come. The philosophy of materiality and im- 
mortality, which he taught, rendered him and his doctrines very 
obnoxious to the orthodox defenders of the faith ; and they usually 
opposed his meetings, and used every effort to prevent the people 
from listening to the words of this infidel preacher. The " houses 
of God " were almost as effectually shut against him as they were 
against Jesus and John when they went out to preach. I am 
aware that some persons, who have been accustomed to idolizing 
Jesus, will be shocked at our comparisons ; but we are unable to see 
any impropriety in it ; for there were some marked correspondences 
between the two, especially in the heresies and blasphemies they 
both taught, and in the reception of their teachings by the people 
and the priests, and also in the genealogy, both being rather im- 
perfect beyond the mother ; and, were we disposed to record the 
feats of healing, we might make a feeble correspondence there 
also. But these are of no account to us or to the Lone One, and 
only inserted to moderate the superstition, rather than to connect 
the Lone One by comparison to any distinguished personage of 
past or present time. The voices of his guardians were ever urg- 
ing him on in his mission. 

" Be firm, be bold, be strong, be true, 
And dare to stand alone ; 
Strive for the right, whate'er you do, 
Though helpers there are none. 

" Nay, bend not to the swelling surge 
Of public sneer and wrong ; 
'Twill bear thee on to ruin's verge, 
With current wild and strong. 

« Stand for the right ! Though falsehood rail, 
And proud lips coldly sneer, 
A poisoned arrow cannot wound 
A conscience pure and clear. 



172 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

" Stand for the right ! and with clean hands 
Exalt the truth on high ; 
Thou 'It find warm, sympathizing hearts 
Among the passers by ; 

" Men who have seen, and thought, and felt, 
Yet could not boldly dare 
The battle's brunt, but by thy side 
Will every danger share. 

" Stand for the right ! Proclaim it loud ! 
Thou 'It find an answering tone 
In honest hearts, and thou 'It no more 
Be doomed to stand alone." 

Along the pathway of this development might be noticed many 
incidents of interest to the searcher after evidences of spirit-life ; 
but it would be out of the line of our narrative to use up many 
pages for that purpose. But it must be borne in mind that the 
Lone One was originally, educationally, and reputationally, the 
most sceptical of all sceptics. Having no faith in immortality, he 
was not seeking for proof of the negative, but for evidence of the 
positive side of the question. He had become fully satisfied that 
the Christians could furnish no facts and no evidence for a reason- 
ing, metaphysical, and scientific mind; that their authority-evi- 
dence was not admissible as evidence at all ; that their theory was 
only theory, and a belief in it was no evidence of its truth. For 
well he knew that belief and doubt were twin-sisters, and never 
could be separated; and that theory, without demonstration, could 
never claim more than belief — never knowledge. The very theory 
of another life, immaterial, and, of course, for that reason, if no 
other, beyond the power of manifestation, precluded the possibility 
of demonstration. He had, therefore, long since given up all hope 
of evidence from that source. Nor did he begin the search in 
mesmerism for the purpose of proving, or with the view or expect- 
ation to prove, the existence of spirits. He rather supposed it 
would more effectually confirm his unbelief. Step after step, he 
was led by facts, which are stubborn obstacles to a false theory, 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 173 

and strike hard as Ajax's rocks in an enemy's ranks. He had 
become fully satisfied and boldly defended the other life, and its 
intercourse with this through the systems which were suscepti- 
ble to clairvoyant condition, before the alarm was sounded in the 
Christian tents at Hydeville and Rochester, by the raps of the 
then pious Fox family. He was not surprised, but overjoyed, when 
he became satisfied that the spirit-friends had found more ways of 
communicating to us a knowledge of their existence and presence ; 
and he was not much surprised to find the churches and their 
preachers on the negative side, and opposing every form of dem- 
onstration that could prove continued existence ; for he had long ac- 
cused them of teaching their doctrines as a trade, and for a business, 
and not from a belief. And now he saw they were about to prove 
it so by opposing the only real and reliable evidence we can have 
of the continued existence of our friends after the body is cast off. 
Neither was he surprised when he saw the course they took after 
being compelled to admit the occurrence of the phenomena, and 
the intelligence exhibited in them. A theory which teaches that 
all invisible agencies around us that exhibit intelligence are from 
one of two sources, God or Devil, would, of course, attribute these 
to one or the other; and the God or Devil origin of each intelligent 
communication would, of course, be determined by its agreement 
with the theory of the judge who had a theory or doctrine as an 
infallible standard of truth. To the Catholic, if it defended Prot- 
estantism as superior to his church, of course it would be the 
Devil ; to the Calvinist, if it sustained Unitarianism as superior 
to his creed, of course it would be the Devil ; to the Methodist, 
if it upheld Universalism as superior to his doctrine, of course it 
would be the Devil ; to the Universalist, if it denied the sacred- 
ness of the Bible, and the value of his preaching, it could not be 
attributed to the Devil, for this church is beyond the Devil-the- 
ory, and furnishes the singular phenomenon of a church without a 
Devil, of which I think many of them have seen the need in these 
trying times, with this most potent heresy. They are compelled 
to attribute it to electricity, to od-force, to deception, to anything 
15* 



174 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

but spirits. Not that ; for, if that be the source of this intelligence, 
then we shall soon have a new set of preachers, and the old ones, 
who we supposed were above and out of our way, will be in the 
field again competing with the new. But to the infidel, who had 
no Devil or God playing with us by fallible intelligence, these 
phenomena became generally highly interesting, and brought to 
thousands of such minds the first ray of light from the hereafter, 
and the first point of evidence of continued existence. 

Soon after the shout, and laugh, and ribald jest, of witling and 
clown, had gone over the country with the " Rochester Knockings" 
for a bait, the Lone One and a few eager souls formed a circle, 
and met weekly or oftener for more than six months, without a 
rap or signal of any kind from invisible spirits ; and the Chris- 
tians said, " Fools ! you might know better! " But they retorted, 
" Fools ! what do you go weekly for years to the church for, and 
never find God, nor any signs that there is a God, except those 
the infidel has in common with you, in nature ? " After six 
months of perseverance, a new member of the circle was added as 
a visitor, casually, in the person of a young lady, a member of a 
Presbyterian church ; when the raps came with her, and, for a few 
weeks, they were delighted by brief and imperfect messages from 
their spirit-friends. All over the clothes, and even on the hair of 
the Lone One, could be heard the tiny raps of the two little, over- 
joyed boys, whose bodies he had left in sorrow under the apple- 
tree; and soon, in stronger magnetic sound, came the glad beats 
of his mother, eager to make herself known by the new mode of 
communicating; for she had already done it by clairvoyance. 

This medium was soon frightened out of her mediumship, or the 
use of it, by her religious superiors, who said it was the Devil, 
although she had the most incontrovertible evidence that her 
mother communicated to her, both when alone and in circles. But 
they told her it was surely the Devil pretending to be her mother, 
and getting the facts and knowledge from her mind, &c. " Poor, 
ignorant souls ! " said the Lone One ; " if you who are safely 
locked in the church, and faithful to every command of her and 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 175 

God, are not protected and safe against the Devil without a priest 
to guide you, then jour religion is worthless, and mine is better ; 
for the Devil cannot, and does not, affect or disturb me." — " But 
you are his child," they replied. — " Then I must serve my father. 
And now let us compare lines. Bring out some son of a priest, 
born forty years ago ; run his Life-Line along by the side of mine ; 
and let us see how one of God's sons would compare with one 
of the Devil's." — "0, horrible blasphemy ! I do wish he had 
left this abuse of the churches out of this book ! " says the pious 
reader. But, reader, it is only harsh to those who have idols. 
The mother can bear to have you point out the faults and defects 
of her neighbor's children, but not those of her own. Only the 
virtues of them must be named to her. If we overlook the errors, 
how shall we ever correct them ? We have not attempted to screen 
the Lone One from the blame that justly belonged to him. We 
have only given him what belonged to him, — -the credit of hon- 
esty in belief and motive ; and these ever prompted him, as any 
one might know from the fact that his belief, boldly defended, was 
always the unpopular one. One of the members of the six- 
months' circle before referred to — an erratic, disordered, and 
eccentric Scotchman, with domestic troubles and social inharmony 
■ — became insane soon after, and, claiming to be controlled by 
God, or Lambie, or the Devil, or all three, and more, cut up 
strange, but usually harmless, capers about the village, until some 
frightened and threatened citizens took him, chained, to jail, and 
then the horrors of spiritualism were exposed. Insanity was its 
effect, and one victim was already before the public, and was a 
sure sign that thousands would follow. It was in vain that its 
defenders pointed out other causes ; no others would be received. 
It was in vain they showed the hundreds of victims of religious 
revivals : these had plenty of causes besides religion. But this, 
and one or two they heard of in some unknown place, made it 
sure this delusion was of the Devil. Now, more than ever, the 
Lone One saw the necessity for bold and strong hearts to step into 
the field, and defend the cause of truth, and the best facts the 



176 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

world had ever discovered of another life, against the prejudice 
and crushing power of the churches, which seemed as determined 
to kill it out in its infancy as Herod and the priests were to kill 
Jesus in his infancy. The friends, warned in a dream, seized the 
young child, and fled into the Egypt of scepticism and Infidelity 
(I use the term Infidel here in the sense the Christians do, — un- 
believers in their doctrines) , and there nursed it ; and it grew, in 
spite of the Buffalo doctors, who were employed by the priest to 
strangle it. 

Next, Charles Beecher was employed to christen it with hot 
water, or " hell-fire," that it might die ; but it was miraculously 
preserved against this also, as it was against the poison emetics 
of the doctors. Next, the speculators came, and offered great 
prices for it as a slave to hunt up treasures, thieves, town-sites, 
and corner-lots ; but it could not be bought, and they cursed it, 
and said it would not pay; it was worthless, a nuisance, and 
ought to be killed ; and they engaged the services of a Dr. Rich- 
mond, of Ohio, and a sceptic — Rogers — of Boston ; and they 
both shot at it, but their guns kicked them both over ; and when 
they had recovered, like the Irishman, they saw the game laugh- 
ing at them, and discovered that they had the wrong end of the 
gun. Only one course seemed to be left to rid the country of 
this terrible enemy to sanity and religion, and that was, to get 
some president of a college to issue a " mandamus ; " and they 
found a ready tool in a Mahan, who was willing to take the 
chances ; and he filled up the instrument, but made a fatal mis- 
take in the names, and sent his own religion to prison, and 
" damned " himself "to everlasting fame." His college started 
down a decline, and he went up " Salt River " soon after, and has 
not been heard from since, except by those who have correspond- 
ence with that country. Several other distinguished citizens in- 
jured themselves permanently or temporarily by throwing clubs at 
this object of hatred to them, which often flew back and hit them- 
selves, with more or less force, as they were hurled with more or 
less fury and hate. By its side, and in its defence, stood some of 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 177 

the noblest, purest, firmest, and truest hearts of the country and 
the world. Robert Owen and Dr. Ashbumer, of the Old World, 
came early to see the child, and " believed on him; " and, in this 
country, Hon. J. W. Edmonds, N. P. Tallmadge, Senator Simmons, 
J. R. Giddings, B. F. Wade, and a host of others from the side 
of law and government, came to the rescue ; and from science 
came Professor Robert Hare, Professor Mapes, Professor Bu- 
chanan, and a host of others from the medicine side of science ; 
and from the theology side the Universalists and Unitarians let up 
a whole delegation, and some of the others a few of their best 
specimens, to defend, in the days of its odium, the philosophy and 
demonstration that is to convince the world of immortality. From 
the ranks of the quiet reasoners and thinkers of the cities and 
country a host fell in with the facts as fast as they could be pre- 
sented to them. But nearly every church was alarmed ; and the 
watchmen on the walls of Zion were sounding the cry of " An 
enemy is coming ! Be up, and ready for battle ! Put on the 
whole armor of the Gospel ! We will lead you to the fight ! 
Come on ! come on ! Here is the old enemy, the Devil, in a new 
dress ! Be careful, or he will deceive you ! Look only to us ; 
trust in the Lord ; read the Bible ! Do not look off the book, for 
that light may dazzle or bewilder you ! " The poor dupes were 
thus led captives into darkness by thousands, who might have 
seen the light and known the glorious truths of the new gospel, 
and it would have set them free. 

" There surely is some guiding power 
Which rightly suffers wrong, — 
Gives vice to bloom its little hour, 
But virtue late and long." 

At the commencement of 1853 the fourth decade of the Lone 
One terminated ; and forty years had made their wrinkles on his 
brow, whitened and curled his locks, and rather straightened than 
bent his form. The last ten had done the work for his mind. He 
was now emancipated from the bondage to cold and soulless seep- 



178 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

ticism, and a full recipient of the glorious truths of spirit-life. 
Freed from all political obligations and aspirations, he sought none 
of its places, nor would he accept its offers. Free from the Pha- 
lanx trials, and all partial and isolated efforts to save a few souls, 
and go with them through life and to heaven, his philanthropy was 
now world-wide, and his home and " domain " the world, and all 
men members of the Phalanx. He was now fully the cosmopo- 
lite, and his field of labor the world-home. True, his little means, 
amounting perhaps in value to one thousand dollars, was in a little 
house-and-garden home for his family, which he intended sacredly 
to guard for them. But, other than this, his home and his busi- 
ness, his time and his talents, were all now devoted to the spread 
and dissemination of the new philosophy of spirit life and inter- 
course. True, for some time after he had devoted himself to this 
new business, the receipts did not sustain his economical, family. 
But he was not disheartened, but borrowed money of the state for 
that purpose, with a hope that it would not sacrifice his little home, 
and it did not ; for God always helps those who help themselves, 
and " works in the working soul." Nearly all his old friends now 
deserted him. A few only of those who were near in condition 
of mind, and knew him best, stood by him in this last and best 
consecration of himself to the last and most odious of all doc- 
trines, — a belief in spirits. Although this itinerant labor did 
not bring dimes as a reward, it brought that which to him was 
equally valuable, — warm hearts, sympathy, open homes, and wel- 
coming hands. These he often met, and they cheered him on his 
way, and encouraged him to persevere, but not more effectually or 
really than did the messages from the spirit-home which often 
reached him, with the most cheering and encouraging expressions 
of love and sympathy. For a time, the lonesome and grieving 
mate was honestly and strongly prejudiced against this course, and 
the doctrine he taught ; but it was only the sickness that precedes 
the action of the emetic which brings up the superfluous bile ; so 
this threw up and out, in time, the accumulations of the years in 
error, with old Calvinism at the bottom ; all went over together, 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 179 

and she became free and spiritually healthy. An entire change 
came over her day and night dreams. She saw, she heard ; she 
felt, she realized, her change of heart ; and she was a convert to 
the. new philosophy, and thus added more happiness to the Life- 
Line of the Lone One than she ever had before ; for now one heart, 
one life, one destiny, was theirs. Every cloud* was removed ; and 
they moved so sweetly toward the sunset of life, that they felt it 
was good for them that all this experience had been gained in this 
life, where it properly belonged, but which many will put over to 
the next. It was late, indeed, at forty, — sixteen years after 
marriage, — to renew and complete the courtship which had been 
so suddenly interrupted, and lain so long neglected ; but it is said 
by some to be " better late than never ; " and well they knew that, 
with many, it was never renewed after marriage, and sadly de- 
ficient before. Ah ! little do those whose lives are spent in the 
muddy pool of sensual and external life, or in the turbulent stream 
of contention and strife, know of the joys of harmonized and 
happy life, with the ascendency of the spiritual over the physical 
self in conjugal life ; nor can they know until they reach it. Then, 

— 0, what a payment for all the struggles to reach the summit ! 

— what an oi;er-payment for the night of life spent in tears and 
sorrows ! Now his home was lonely without him, for a reason ; 
and the pet daughter, joined by the mother, could say, but not 
sing : 

" Linger not long ! Home is not home without thee ; 
Its dearest tokens do but make us mourn. 
! let its memory, like a chain about thee, 
Gently compel and hasten thy return ! 

" Linger not long ! Though crowds should woo thy staying, 
Bethink thee, can the mirth of friends, though dear, 
Compensate for the grief thy long delaying 
Costs the sad hearts that sigh to have thee here ? " 

Now, when he came, the leaping hearts and joyous kiss were 
ever ready to meet him, and happiness, such as few ever realize 



180 LIFE-LINE OF THE LOInE ONE. 

in this life, was spread, like a " balm of thousand flowers," on all 
about this home. His friends felt it; but his enemies, with 
poison-tongue of slander, were only the more bitter, when every 
hope of making trouble in his family was lost, by her conversion 
to his belief, and the calm and happy life they had attained foiled 
all their efforts in that direction. The serpent was still biting at 
the file, although its teeth were often broken and loosened, while 
he moved steadily on his course, with the exclamation, often, 

" Not all they do, or say, can make 
My head, or tooth, or finger ache, 
Nor mar my form, nor scar my face, 
Nor put one feature out of place ; 
Nor will ten thousand lies 
Make me less virtuous, learned, or wise. 
Their malice the best way to balk, 
Is quietly to let them talk." 

Envy, malice, spite, and lies, were multiplied, and sent after 
him and before him, and the vigilant enemies of his teachings 
made every effort in their power to destroy his influence as a 
teacher of the Harmonial Philosophy. For well many of them 
knew the power of his mind, and the magnetism of his language, 
with truth for its weapon. To defeat, or retard, the spread of 
such doctrine, it was necessary, at whatever cost, to stop him from 
advocating it, or destroy his influence. But it was a failure. 
Every dart sent at him was caught on his shield, and, with a clear 
conscience and honest heart, boldly and fearlessly he moved on, 
though " branded by the slanderer's lies," till he lived them down ; 
and when accusations reached him he smiled, and pitied those who 
aimed them at him, and asked those who received them as true to 
call for the execution of the law, or to bring him the person, and 
the testimony, and he would restore four-fold. This, of course, 
could never be done ; for the cry of " wolf — wolf! " was not made 
because wolves were near, but only to alarm the sheep. He also 
boldly advocated the right of every married woman to an equal 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 181 

share and control of all property of the family, and to equal 
social, civil, religious, and political privileges, and to a divorce 
whenever she asked it, even without being obliged to reveal or 
make public the cause ; for well he and many others knew there 
were thousands of suffering victims who dare not mention the 
causes of their misery, but who had ample cause, and good reason, 
for asking for divorce, with sufficient property to sustain them. 
These doctrines rendered him terribly obnoxious to a certain class 
of sensualists and petty tyrants ; but they brought him the sympa- 
thy of thousands of martyrs, from their spirit-homes, and some still 
lingering here ; and he knew, if the sufferers were his friends, that 
his cause was a righteous one, and he could afford to defend it, 
however unpopular, for he was by birth, education, and life, the 
legitimate attorney of all odious or unpopular truths and rights. 
Like the tree which brings the early and pleasant apples, he had 
been clubbed and pelted all his life, and grown stronger and more 
vigorous thereby. 

" Cheer up, cheer up ! Though life has days, 

November days, I ween, 
When the lone heart wails like the wind, 

And nothing bright is seen ; 
When smiles come faintly to the lips, 

And eyes glance mournfully, 
And hope seems like a faded leaf 

Just clinging to the tree ; 

"Yet smile — cheer up ! New hopes and joys 

Within thy heart will spring. 
And He whose love is oyer all 

A spirit-balm will bring. 
Cheer up, nor wear a clouded brow, 

Thy home with gloom to till ; 
Thank God for past and present good, 

And brood not o'er the ill," 

16 



CHAPTER V. 

FRACTIONAL DECADE. 

The Cosmopolite. — The Harmonial Man, the Happy Family, and the New 
Home The Triumph of Justice. 

Section I. 
ETERNAL JUSTICE. 

BY CHARLES MACKAY. 

The man is thought a knave or fool, 

Or bigot, plotting crime, 
Who, for the advancement of his kind, 

Is wiser than his time. 
For him the hemlock shall distil, 

For him the axe be bared ; 
For him the gibbet shall be built, 

For him the stake prepared ; 
Him shall the scorn and wrath of men 

Pursue with deadly aim ; 
And malice, envy, spite, and lies, 

Shall desecrate his name. 
But truth shall conquer at the last, 

For round and round we run, 
And ever the right comes uppermost, 

And ever is justice done. 

Pace through thy cell, old Socrates, 

Cheerily, to and fro ! 
Trust to the impulse of thy soul, 

And let the poison flow. 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 183 

They may shatter to earth the lamp of clay 

That holds a light divine, 
But they cannot quench the fire of thought 

By any such deadly wine ; 
They cannot blot thy spoken words 

From the memory of man, 
By all the poison ever was brewed 

Since time its course began. 
To-day abhorred, to-morrow adored, 

So round and round we run, 
And ever the truth comes uppermost, 

And ever is justice done. 

Plod in thy cave, gray Anchorite ! 

Be wiser than thy peers ; 
Augment the range of human power, 

And trust to coming years. 
They may call thee wizard, and monk accursed, 

And load thee with dispraise : 
Thou wert born five hundred years too soon 

For the comfort of thy days. 
But not too soon for human kind : 

Time hath reward in store, 
And the demons of our sires become 

The saints that we adore. 
The blind can see, the slave is lord ; 

So round and round we run, 
And ever the wrong is proved to be wrong, 

And ever is justice done. 

Keep, Galileo, to thy thought, 

And nerve thy soul to bear! 
They may gloat o'er the senseless words they wring 

From the pangs of thy despair : 
They may veil their eyes, but they cannot hide 

The sun's meridian glow ; 
The heel of a priest may tread thee down, 

And a tyrant work thee woe ; 
But never a truth has been destroyed : 

They may curse it and call it crime ; 
Pervert and betray, or slander and slay 

Its teachers, for a time. 



184 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

But the sunshine, aye, shall light the sky, 

As round and round we run, 
And the truth shall ever come uppermost, 

And justice shall be done. 

And live there now such men as these, 

With thoughts like the great of old ? 
Many have died in their misery, 

And left their thought untold ; 
And many live, and are ranked as mad, 

And placed in the cold world's ban, 
For sending their bright, far-seeing souls 

Three centuries in the van. 
They toil in penury and grief, 

Unknown, if not maligned ; 
Forlorn, forlorn, bearing the scorn 

Of the meanest of mankind. 
But yet the world goes round and round, 

And the genial seasons run, 
And ever the truth comes uppermost, 

And ever is justice done. 

The remainder of this record will be mainly from the notes in 
the Diary, or the correspondence of the Cosmopolite, with foreign 
items, inserted to finish or furnish the apartment. 

Jan. 5, 1853. — A juror all day in court-room of the United 
States district court in Milwaukie, with the thick-skulled judge, 
of whom mention is made in this narrative, presiding, and a 
description of whose character and capacity was written at the 
time by this seer, and published in one of the city papers, and 
brought the approval and compliments of the ablest attorney in 
the city to its author. While the United States paid for his ser- 
vices at court, he had out his notices and lectured evenings, to 
small but respectable audiences in the city, on the philosophy of 
spirit intercourse. When court and the lectures were closed in 
the city, he journeyed westward, and stopped to lecture in several 
small villages, arousing much interest in, and opposition to, the 
new philosophy. 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 185 

Jan. 20, '53. — Dines with the governor at the capital. 
Elected an officer of the State Agricultural Society, and 
declines an invitation to deliver the annual address. Lectures, by 
invitation of Assembly, in the Assembly Hall of the Capitol to 
large and very intelligent audience, who seem highly pleased. 
Holds a conspicuous place in the Free-Soil State Convention, 
but declines all offices and honors. Writes for several papers 
sketches and criticisms. Gave several lectures in the court-house, 
and was confined for a week to house with rebellion among the 
nerves, and a severe battle in the forts of the mouth. But the 
soothing hand of one dear friend, whose soul sympathized with 
his philosophy, rendered misery bearable ; but she had seen him 
in sickness and health, in joy and grief, and well she knew his 
life was above the rabble that abused him because he would not 
bend and endorse its falsehoods and follies. 

Feb. 7. — Accepted renewal of commission as notary, which he 
had held for some years, because he executed most of the deeds 
and acknowledgments of the village when at home. 

Feb. 13. — Sunday, holds a discussion in the Methodist church 
of the Ceresco Valley (for, since the dissolution of the Phalanx, 
one had been erected to save the fragments) with the most vul- 
gar blackguard he ever knew to be clothed with priestly gar- 
ments ; but he conquered him by mildness and good-humor, and 
carried the audience against the priest, which caused the door 
of the church to be closed ever after against discussion of new 
or old truths. 

Feb. 20. — Again at the capitol, endeavoring to secure the 
passage of a bill to incorporate and unite the villages of Ripon and 
Ceresco, under the name of Morena ; but he left it ; and it died 
before birth. He met several warm friends, among them his old 
senator-friend, who was now a member of the lower house, but 

still Hon. . A whirlpool of excitement was at this time 

about the capitol, caused by an effort to impeach a Judge Hubbel, 
charged with more crimes than Jesus or Robespierre ; but the 
accusers were less successful in proving them, because they could 
16* 



186 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

not find the sinless man to cast the first stone, and he escaped 
with his judicial neck unbroken. Whether it deserved it or not, 
" deponent saith not." In this commotion the Cosmopolite had 
no share, and therefore he soon moved out of it. 

Feb. 26. — In Janesville, put up bills himself, and lectured in 
the evening to small audience, in large hall. Poor subject, they 
said, but good speaker. " What a fool he is, to throw himself 
away on that ridiculous humbug ! " Here he made the first 
acquaintance with the Higgins family, or the Columbians, a con- 
cert-band of brothers and sisters. The younger sister was then 
recovering from a severe attack of typhoid fever ; in treating 
which, her physician had taken it from her, and died. She felt 
the magnetic healing power of the Lone One's system, and 
admired his Harmonial Philosophy ; for this herself, and one sis- 
ter, two brothers, and the father and mother, had already 
embraced and advocated. This enlightened, and developed, and 
happy family subsequently became his personal friends, and are 
to this day highly esteemed by him ; for they, and especially the 
parents, were among the few who had been in and turned out of 
the Calvinistic church, and had their hearts purified and refined 
in the refiner's fire of persecution ; and when he found them the 
sunshine of the glorious gospel of truth and deliverance fell 
calmly on their souls. Two sons, with happy homes of their own, 
are in Chicago. One has a Mary, such as God seldom blesses 
man with in this life, and the other has his cup of domestic 
joy overflowing. Two other brothers are also music-dealers in 
Peoria, 111., and how or what they have for domestic music we 
cannot say, but their souls are tuned to exquisite strains of 
" nature's harp-strings." The two sisters have also u tied up," 
and, one southing and the other northing, have no doubt found joy 
and sorrow somewhat mixed, in this life, but probably are more 
beloved and happy than most wedded hearts in the world's broad 
battle-field. Their homes cannot be other than homes of purity 
and love, for such their hearts ever were ; and nature and educa- 
tion never qualified two females better than they did these for 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 187 

domestic happiness. The home of the parents is in Palmyra, 
Wis., where the Lone One occasionally has a happy day of rest. 
Thus the parted voices of the Columbians are uttering other music 
in new concerts ; but each voice can yet sing the story of the 
Jordan road, and Judson can make you gaze after the " Old Mill 
by the hill-side where we used to go in the summer-time." 

The following token from one of the family, received by the 
Lone One, at the close of a short visit at the old homestead, may 
serve as a specimen of their appreciation of him, and also as one 
like many others in the journeyings of after years. 

" Dear Brother : You are going now far away, on your 
angel-mission. The brief period you have been with us has 
indeed been precious to our hungry souls ; it will ever be remem- 
bered with pleasure ; and gratitude will swell our hearts in think- 
ing of the kind words, and tender expressions of love and sympa- 
thy, that have flowed so spontaneously from your heart and lips. 
The heavenly sphere so truly yours attracts us, and we can but 
love to be with you, and regret your short stay with us. But you 
will not forget us, though absent ; and, though other and dearer 
friends surround you, I know we shall be remembered in your 
prayers, and the expressions of your heart. We wish a thought 

once in a while from our brother, and if it would not 

tax too much on the time devoted to others, we should be glad to 
receive thoughts on scraps of paper. Now good-by ! Heaven will 
ever bless one so good and worthy as thou art ; and when the 
time comes will give to thee that lovely home so beautifully 
described to us by the dwellers there. That we may all meet in 
that happy home, is the prayer of thy sister and each of us." . . . 

We might select from his margin scrap-book many specimens, 
from many authors, of purity and love, like the above, of a cor- 
respondence which, running through years, led the vulgar and 
licentious to believe he was continuing it from such motives only 
as could prompt them to correspond with females. 



188 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

March 2. — Leaves Janesville; expenses six dollars more than 
receipts for lectures. Go to Beloit, and 

Sunday, March 6. — Lecture in place of Universalist preacher, 
and in the evening lecture on marriage to a full house ; good recep- 
tion, but few spiritualists. Theological professors of the college 
keep the place in ignorance and darkness on this subject, by 
assuming to know all about what they know nothing about. 

March 7. — Went to Rockton, and made the acquaintance of 
George Guthrie and Mrs. E. M. Guthrie and her mother and two 
sisters, all members of God's new church of Harmonialists. 
George was nearly unbodied by consumption, and he requested 
the Lone One to stay with him a few days, and point out the way 
through the valley of darkness to the sunny and flowery lands 
beyond. He did so, at the same time relieving his body from 
much pain ; which body a few weeks after he left entirely, and in 
a new sphere commenced the work of preparing another home for 
Emily and their boy. Many months after his exodus from earth- 
life, he came to the Lone One through a medium, far away from his 
earthly home, and related much of his experience in the new life, 
as he promised to do when in his body. Not long after, the mother 
of Emily also, long a sufferer, made her escape from the body of 
pain, and met her companion, who was waiting her at the entrance 
of the spirit-home. Thus Emily and Elizabeth were unhoused ; 
but Mary had still a home of her own, and a husband to supply 
it. Emily, whose soul had flowed out in poetry and prose that 
had interested and delighted many readers of the New York 
Tribune and other papers, had her heart wounded by the separa- 
tion from George ; and an attempt to supply his place by a subse- 
quent marriage came near carrying her body to the grave, and 
proved how futile are all attempts to make commercial marriages 
happy. A few weeks only did she live in a miserable earthly 
union, when she broke the bond that would in a few more weeks 
have broken her thread of earth-life, and with her boy joined 
again her sister, a wiser and better spirit , for such trials ever 
develop, and often purify, the victims. These two sisters, now 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE, 189 

homeless, became itinerating preachers of the new gospel, and, 
for aught we know, are preaching " to this day." Wherever 
they are, they are messengers of heaven, and preaching for the 
Harmonial age, and struggling with a wicked world and its false 
societies, which ever pays its best teachers with persecution or death. 
A few words of extract from a letter from this noble soul may serve 
to show her true spirit, and its appreciation of the Lone One. 

" March, '53. — We received your joyously- welcomed letter in 
due time. It came with soothing magnetic power to George, for 
which he was deeply grateful, as we all are. He has not been 
troubled with headache since you left ; yet he has often wished 

you were with us But, to answer the question propounded 

in your very interesting note to the three sisters. 

Ah, yes, we will strive to meet with you there, 
To dwell 'neath the Infinite Father's care, 
"Where nature's laws are the guide of the soul, 
Liberty only our footsteps controls ; 
Where harmony lulls all strife to repose, 
Life with eternity only shall close ; 
The universe broad the field we explore, 
And spirits congenial are near evermore. ' ' 

Not more than a dozen souls could be called out to lectures at 
that time in Bockton, who could understand, or who wished to 
understand, the Harmonial Philosophy. 

March 11, '53. — At the beautiful home of Dr. George Haskell, 
in Rockford. The doctor's connection with the Baptist church 
had been already disturbed by sounds and sentiments from the 
spirit-world. By his aid, and the already harmonized and spir- 
itualized family of Dr. Rudd, quite an interest was awakened in 
the young city, and eight or ten lectures were given to good 
audiences, and a permanent condition of inquiry and investigation 
started, that has not yet been preached down nor prayed down. 
Dr. Haskell, soon fully emancipated, became one of the boldest 
and ablest defenders of the new gospel in the West, both with 
tongue and pen ; and the powers of earth might as well attempt to 



190 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

encase a singing-bird a second time in its shell, as to return him 
to the little close-communion creed from which he has emerged. 
At Dr. Rudd's the Lone One found, now and ever, one of his most 
happy and congenial homes, to which he several times returned 
with pleasure, to meet such spirits as he expected to meet on the 
other side of Jordan. 

March 23. — At Belvidere, at the house of Barney Smith, who 
was a prominent target for the shooters who considered themselves 
sharp enough to kill spirits with shots from the pulpit or bar- 
room. Here he parted with Mr, and Mrs. Archer, who were 
registered in heaven among his earliest and latest friends, as they 
were to all persons whom man oppressed. 

March 26. — At Elgin, at the house of a host embodied in the 
person of N. E. Dagget, who had for years taken the wind out of 
the sails of preachers, and been a stumbling-block to the churches ; 
and now he became the ablest " defender of the faith " in spirit- 
ualism in " all the region round about." They did have good 
times, at the four-mile circle, on Sundays, in those days ; but now 
they seem as the days of " long ago." 

April 4. — A course of lectures in Chicago ; did not pay ex- 
penses : for the excitement created by Seth Paine and Ira B. Eddy 
had laid the spirits, for a time, and the Lone One could not raise 
them or the dead people, and of course he went out of the city 
minus dollars and words. But he knew this gospel had to be 
preached at somebody's expense. 

April 8. — In Waukegan, but, alas ! Seth Paine had been there, 
and some persons, accustomed to magnifying trifles, told large 
stories on small capital, and what was nobody's business was at- 
tended to by everybody, as usual, — a sort of change, for nobody 
usually attends to everybody's business. They got up good meet- 
ings, in spite of slander; and the gospel went home with many 
souls, and quickened them into life. This was one of the early- 
lighted places, and has never let its lamp go out, but has rather 
illuminated the whole city and county by its rays, shed in lectures, 
and its papers. The Lone One met and left many good friends at 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 191 

this place ; but we cannot single out one or two, nor name all, and 
hence leave them with Ira Porter for selection. 

April 15. — At the Kenosha, once the old Southport home, 
but now a dead place, with a few live friends in it, and the graves 
of his boys. The people would nearly all come to hear him lec- 
ture, if he would speak at, or on, some subject that they were not 
prejudiced against. But the Rochester knockings, and the com- 
munications of dead folks, could not be crammed into their heads, 
which were already overstocked with speculation and religion ; but 
there were Sholes in the place (each one wrote the we for the I), 
and God never cased better spirits than were in these frames ; but 
they were few and not far between, nor was it far from them to 
the kingdom of heaven. Their homes were always homes for Lone 
Ones from anywhere, and they always had a meeting when any 
one came along who could say a say for God or man. 

April 21. — In the eve came off the closing lecture of the course, 
and a terrible storm shut out all but seven men, to whom a long 
discourse was given ; for, the mayor being present, order was pre- 
served, the fees collected, and they would have their pay for 
breaking the storm. Racine took a few lectures, and gave him a 
good visit in return. One of them, in Rev. A. C. Barry's church, 
went off at par ; the rest were sold at a discount. 

May 2. — The steamboat landed one passenger, certainly, at 
Milwaukie, and the Lone One had belted a district, and counted 
the cost, and weighed the profit. Here be had an acquaintance 
with one of God's children, in Dr. J. P. Greaves ; and one of the 
children of science, in his skilful homoeopathic partner. By the aid 
of Dr. G., whose pocket was short then, but afterwards greatly 
lengthened, the gospel had been spreading ; — a hall was soon 
secured, and another course of lectures were scattered. At this 
visit he became acquainted with one of the most deplorable cases 
of manslaughter he ever knew; and, by expressing sympathy for 
the victim, he aroused the anger, and awakened the hatred, of the 
cruel tyrant ; but he felt more than ever called upon to talk and 
write against domestic slavery, and tyranny, and the soulless 



192 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

cruelty of lust in wedlock, with a victim ; and this, of course, 
aroused the ire, more than ever, of the petty tyrant. This poor 
victim, a delicate and sensitive, highly-nervous, and very affectionate 
lady, for near twenty years the slave to a man of coarse organiza- 
tion, full of lust, a tyrant in manners and actions, who had forced 
upon her unwilling body and mind maternity near a dozen times, 
and when she remonstrated, with decision, claiming control of her 
person, and the right to keep it pure, he became a madman, and in 
rage and jealousy joined the rabble in slandering the mother of 
his children, and accusing her of all manner of vices, which were 
charged to spiritualists, because with them she found sympathy 
and encouragement in her honesty and purity of life. Should the 
reader ever meet Dr. Gr., he or she can learn from him more of 
this heartless cruelty, and suffering victim. At this time he also 
became acquainted with a Mrs. P., one of nature's noble women, 
intellectual, refined, ambitious, and emotional. She had been 
unhappily mated, and, after many years of suffering, her legal 
husband left her to support their three children, and went to Cali- 
fornia ; and when it was well ascertained that he had abandoned 
her entirely, she procured a divorce, and married one who loved 
her. This brought the condemnation, scorn, and disgust, of those 
who styled themselves the fashionable and popular circles of society. 
A few weeks after her marriage her new, and true, husband died, 
and she had no one to shield her from poverty and the scorn of the 
world. Of course it was not the duty of any Christian to aid or 
comfort her, for she had broken their sacred tie of legal marriage ; 
and they not only let her suffer, but heaped slander on her with 
their scorn, that often sent the licentious to her to be repulsed 
with contempt; and, thus enraged, they would join the popu ar 
cry, and thus she had all against her except the few spiritualists 
who alone respected, appreciated, and sympathized with her ; and 
here again, as in many instances, the pure and suffering victims 
of popular prejudice found their character and reputation con- 
nected with the persecuted spiritualists, even before they were 
believers in the philosophy. Soon after this, the father of her 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 193 

children died in California, leaving some property, which the 
scheming and designing enemies prevented from reaching the 
children, and left them all to suffer in extreme poverty, for aught 
I know, " to this day," relieved only slightly and- occasionally by 
a kind old mother in England. 

These were not all, but only a few, of the reasons why the Lone 
One was found in defence of the suffering victims of a perverted 
institution, which, like a bad government, oppresses those it should 
protect. He never did advocate its abolition, nor did he ever 
believe it could be dispensed with ; but he advocated those changes 
already alluded to, with a release of all the sufferers, without 
public scorn, as a consequence of freedom, as it now is, for woman. 
At this visit he also met (and it was the only time he ever did 
meet away from her home) the lady with whom he had so long 
corresponded, the author of the stolen letter. In passing through 
the city she saw a notice of his lectures, and called on him ; and 
they called on, and sympathized with, Mrs. P. ; when she returned, 
took the cars, and at the end of the iron track the stage, and was 
soon at her home, where she wrote the fatal letter, and referred to 
this meeting in it, which made the gist of the accusation, with the 
answer to some questions which he had asked her in a letter, in 
regard to her married and childless life. But the slanders con- 
nected with his sympathy for these suffering victims in Milwaukie 
were not less actively heralded, and the enemies thought surely 
now they could destroy his influence, and several chiefs in the 
army of slanderers were appointed ; but the staff-officers were the 
Methodist preacher, whom the better portion of his own church 
would not fellowship, and the Ripon pettifogger, who had atoned 
for his infidelity by his abuse of spiritualism, and afterwards 
still more effectually through a little seven-by-nine village paper 
which accidentally fell into his hands, and in which he echoed the 
abuse and slander of all humane efforts at reform and the ameli- 
oration of suffering that the church did not endorse ; and last, but 
not least, the Presbyterian deacon of the valley, who had a hard 
experience in early life in a state institution, but who now added 
17 



194 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

the dignity to the staff, an essential ingredient of which the others 
were deficient. During this stay he also met Miss Cora L. V. 
Scott and her mother. With the family he had a previous 
acquaintance, and had discovered the peculiar and remarkable 
mediumship of Cora and her remarkable organization of brain, when 
he first met her, at the age of thirteen, a little school-girl, at Lake 
Mills, Wisconsin. She performed some remarkable feats of 
mediumship in Milwaukie on this and other visits, which, like 
others of the kind, could only be denied, scouted, and ridiculed? 
where they were not known, and when the instruments were absent. 

May 24. — Pleasant visit with H. D. Barron and his amiable 
lady, at Waukesha. They were among the first defenders of the 
rappers in Hydeville and Auburn, N. Y., and, knowing the truth, 
it had made them free. 

June 5. — At Lake Mills he met Dr. Joslyn and several 
families, with one of the best and most successful circles he had 
ever met, in which Cora L. V. Scott was rapidly developing, 
and several others giving good tests of the presence of particular 
spirits. Here he gave several lectures to good audiences, as he 
had at Genesee and other small towns. 

June 8. — A delegate and in attendance at the capital, in a 
state convention, making speeches, nominating candidates, etc., 
and exerting as much influence as ever, and even more ; for his 
powers of eloquence were enhanced by spiritual aid, and his 
recent labors. 

June 9. - — Takes part in the State Temperance Convention, 
and makes speeches, as he often had in that cause ; but he found 
too much of a sectarian and religiously-bigoted spirit pervading 
this movement for its own good or success, and he could not feel 
in harmony and full fellowship with the movement ; for well he 
knew that whatever reform the clergy took hold of was thereby 
poisoned to death, for their kid gloves soon crowded off the hard- 
ened hands of labor, without which there could be no success. 

June 11. — He reached his valley home, and soon found the 
effects of the lies based on the stolen letter before referred to. 



LIFE-LINE OP THE LONE ONE. 195 

They knew his non-resistant and peace principles would not allow 
him to prosecute them, and hence they took more liberties than 
the law would justify, with only one cause, one reason, for their 
abuse : — because he was a defender of spirits and spirit-inter- 
course. 

. . . . " Every age on him who strays 
From its broad and beaten ways 

Pours its seven-fold vial. 
Happy he whose inward ear 
Angel-whisperings can hear, 

O'er the rabble's laughter ; 
And, while hatred's fagots burn, 
Glimpses through the smoke discern 
Of the good hereafter. 

w Knowing this, that never yet 
Share of truth was vainly set 
In this world's wide fallow ; 
After hands shall sow the seed, 
After hands from hill and mead 
Reap the harvest yellow. 

" Thus, with somewhat of the seer, 
Must the moral pioneer 

From the future borrow ; 
Clothe the waste with dream of grain, 
And on the midnight sky of rain 

Paint the golden morrow." 

When his letter informed the delicate and noble soul of the lady 
that her letter was stolen, and in the hands of the most wicked 
and licentious of preachers, the news almost carried her to insan- 
ity or self-destruction : for well she knew what use such heartless 
and polluted wretches would make of her language uttered to one 
in whom she had implicit confidence, and in whom she knew her 
confidence was not misplaced ; and especially of such language as 
he alone would understand correctly, because it was connected 
with a long line of correspondence, and the words and sentences 
much abbreviated — just what the guilty and suspicious would 



196 LIEE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

need, to carry out their suspicions. The pedlers of gossip, by the 
aid of the priest and pettifogger, soon made a good story out of 
this letter, which story ran somewhat in this wise : That the Lone 
One, when absent from home, lived with the author of this letter, 
and had already raised two children by her, etc. ; when, in truth, 
he had never seen her away from her home, except in the one instance 
referred to, and never at her home when her husband was absent ; 
and she never was the mother of a child, and was a leading member 
of a church, and by all beloved and respected, and as worthy a 
member as any church possessed, and one whose life was, to all 
who knew her, above suspicion, and whose conscience was as void 
of offence in this intercourse as an angel's could be. But, when 
their own researches brought the truth of her situation to light, 
they at once changed the direction of the stories, and sent them 
on suspicion that there must be others, — at least to the number 
of five or six women, — in different places, with which he spent 
his time when absent from home ; and although he was never 
absent a week without writing home, and often had his letters 
published, with name, and date, and public notices of his lectures, 
and address could be found at all times, yet all these facts were 
of no weight against the lies in the minds of the enemies of 
spiritualism ; and, although there had never been a lisp of slan- 
der against him or his moral character before he became a spirit- 
ualist, yet now, at the age of forty, he had all at once become the 
most licentious of all men, and that, too, unaccompanied by any 
of the foods or drinks which cause or accompany such conditions 
in all others. And, although they could never find a victim of his, 
nor a bad character with whom he ever secretly associated, yet this 
was not a defence ; for he was a spiritualist, and of course he was 
bad and licentious, for the priest said they all were, as he knew the 
Fox family were — they had been Methodists, and were turned 
out, while he remained in the fold. But, in truth, he knew nothing 
about them, nor the Lone One either, except that they believed in 
spirit-intercourse ; and even that he could not have known, had. 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 197 

they not been more honest than himself; for you could never judge 
of his belief by his words. 

But all these slanders and falsehoods were no real or permanent 
injury to the Lone One, or his mate. To her they proved bless- 
ings in disguise ; but on him they had little or no effect, for he 
moved steadily and calmly on his course, unruffled and unharmed. 
Some timid and wavering souls were sometimes prevented by them 
from attending his lectures ; for the stories were sent far and near, 
wherever he was known to be travelling and lecturing, and where- 
ever there was a priest or a Christian "to send them to., This was 
all the effect he felt from them ; and this fell on other heads, not 
his, for they often lost the benefit of his experience and observa- 
tion, as given in his early lectures. 

Sunday, June 19. — He lectured at the valley home, to large 
audiences, better than usual ; for many enemies came to see how 
their lies had affected him, and found no change in him. The 
same calm, firm, consistent and energetic self-reliance and devotion 
to his subject. The wife was not yet developed, but the fever had 
turned, and she was rapidly growing into the calmness of the har- 
monial life. The enemies of her happiness and the harmony of 
her family renewed and strengthened their efforts to prevent this ; 
but his influence and that of her spirit-friends soon overcame 
them. She had so long held herself aloof from the spiritualists, 
and considered them either as her enemies or deluded, that it was 
a hard trial for her to turn to them as friends. When she came to 
them she found them with open arms, welcoming and forgiving ; 
and ever after found them her true and real friends, honest and 
confiding, and entirely unlike their enemies, whose selfish and jeal- 
ous souls only tried to use her to accomplish their own ends, in 
destroying his influence. The notes in the diary at this* time 
mention a strong internal pressure from the spirit-world to start 
again into the field of labor ; for his restless and ever-active mind 
would not stay long at home without starting some business, and 
it might be such as would prevent him from doing the work his 
guardians designed him for; and hence the constant messages 
17* 



198 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

through mediums, and by impression, to start again ; and his only 
fear and reluctance arose from the pecuniary wants of his family, 
which he feared could not be supplied by lecturing. 

June 26. — Lectured in Omro ; met good friends, had pleas- 
ant visit of several days, and found some good mediums. Among 
the first was Dr. McAllister, a man of science, skill, and reputa- 
tion, and a bold defender of the truth of spirit-intercourse. 

June 28. — Yisited Dr. McNish, of Berlin, a man of science 
and skill, and much reading, who, being a bold and free inquirer 
after truth, had examined and found some truth in spiritualism, 
and more honesty and morality than in any phase of sectarian 
Christianity, and was therefore found in its defence. He had long 
been a personal friend of the Lone One, and ever defended him 
against the slanders and abuse of which he knew well the cause 
to be religious bigotry and sectarian hatred. 

Sunday, July 3. — Lectures at the valley home, and the 
Methodist priest attends one lecture, and receives a good descrip- 
tion of himself, as one of the opponents of reform and spiritual 
truth. He bears it, but never comes again, nor offers to reply, 
and soon after leaves the place. 

July 4. — Makes a speech to the large assembly in the grove 
at Ripon, where he is much extolled by the highly-pleased audi- 
ence ; and all, except a few jealous persons, who were ever afraid 
of his influence, knowing that he would always use it for the 
whole human family, and not for persons, or a party, or sect of 
any kind, because he was the World's Child, and now a Cosmopo- 
lite. 

July 8. — At the magnificent home of Ex-Gov. Tallmadge, — 
not to get his signature to a charter, — but the ex-governor had 
become a spiritualist, and the Lone One wished to know what had 
drawn him and his family over the walls of the Episcopal church ; 
and soon learned it was facts — incontrovertible facts — of spirit 
presence and intercourse. His heart was made glad by the acces- 
sion of this noble soul and excellent family to the then little band 
of defenders of the most odious and unpopular truth. A pleasant 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LOXE ONE. 199 

day, fine circle, good manifestations, and the excellent visit, were 
soon over ; and he left with a promise from the ex-governor to 
lecture in Fond-da-lac, where no voice but that of the Lone One 
had been heard in public in defence of spirit-intercourse ; for he 
had been the ice-breaker for this truth in all that portion of the 
state. 

Sunday i 10. — Made temperance speech in Presbyterian 
church at Ripon, and the Methodist ranter tried to make one also, 
but failed to do more than disgust the audience, and confuse 
himself. A strong spiritual influence operated in the meeting, 
and bore the Lone One in triumph over sectarianism ; and they, 
seeing it, let the cause die immediately after, by closing the meet- 
ing and the church ; for it was not temperance they wished to 
subserve, but sectarianism. 

At this period, in the rage of slander, it required all the philos- 
ophy and spirit-influence to prevent a legal prosecution of the priest 
for theft and slander; but the milder counsel of Jesus' precepts 
and example prevailed, and he tried to forgive, but could not 
forget, those who knowingly and wilfully sent lies endorsed by 
themselves over all the country where he was known. But all this 
time a hidden blessing was lurking in the brambles and thorns 
that entangled and obstructed his pathway, — a fragrant rose for 
his spirit, that would shed its delights on his soul for ages ; for 
by these slanders he was led to examine more closely and 
minutely the family relations and conditions of society and the 
sexes, and to acquire knowledge which caused him ever after to 
speak and write more boldly and pointedly on the sins of domes- 
tic life ; and this separated some from him who had stood by him, 
to this time, but now he touched their idols also, and they left 
him, and angels came and ministered unto him ; and when they 
passed by on the other side, with the priest, the good Samaritan 
came with the oil and the wine, and the beast, and the purse, and 
his wants were supplied. He was let into a higher light and life 
by the angels, as he saw and felt more clearly the terrible evils of 
this, and dared to speak against them. But boldly he uttered 



200 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

the sentiment, more recently so beautifully expressed through T. 
L. Harris : 

" The man is ignorant of law who gives 
Being to offspring cursed before their birth 
With passions that destroy their future peace ? 
And make the stately fabric of the soul 
A dungeon of impure depravities. 

" The man is ignorant of law who takes 

A forced reluctant wife unto his breast ; 

Whose inward soul another's spirit claims, 

Whose deepest heart expires in constant pain ? 

Dying, and walking daily to new deaths. 

0, cursed ignorance ! that educates 

Maidens for public barter ; that first crowns 

With orange-blooms their brows, then turns the key 

Of wedlock, falsely called so by divines, 

To crush them in its infamous Bastile, 

Making the marriage-bed a rack, where they 

Must wed themselves — poor children — to despair., 

As to an iron giant, while the fire 

Of madness inundates the reeking brain. 
# # # * * * 

Break thou that spell of ignorance that makes 

Woman the slave ! Kedeem her captive heart ! 

Let marriage be the sacrament of soul, 

The deathless union of accordant minds, 

The blending of two perfect lives in one, 

Whose home shall be a paradise, whose bliss 

Chaste, fervent, lasting as an angel's love." 

Now, more than ever before, he felt inspired with truth from 
above, and felt it his duty to scatter the seed broadcast over as 
much of the human world as he could reach, and let the seeds fall 
as they would, in stony places, among thorns, by the wayside, or 
in good soil. He prepared for his mission, but not with purse or 
scrip, or two coats, nor staff, but empty-handed, and with empty 
pockets. But first he summed up and published, in the Oshkosh 
Democrat, the political condition and progress of the state, in an 









LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 201 

article entitled." Signs of Progress; " and, having an excellent and 
highly-esteemed friend connected with that paper in C. J. Allen, — 
a young man of noble and generous but timid soul, — he continued 
to correspond for some time with that paper, until the religious op- 
position to the liberality of his sentiments induced the proprietors, 
greatly to their injury, to request of him more respect for the 
churches ; and of course he gave them all the respect they could 
get, and sent his articles to other papers ever after. 

July 19. — Visits and examines the academy at Ripon, 
which had now become Presbyterian, but in which his eldest son 
and the daughter were among the best students — prompt, faithful, 
and foremost in all but the religion ; that they would not take, 
and were excused from attendance on church, but not on prayers. 
However, they did not learn to pray in that school. 

July 20. — He set out on foot, and walked twelve miles to the 
home of a friend on the prairie ; met several mediums, had a com- 
munication from George, and one from his mother, through a medium 
who was a member of the Methodist church. Next day he walked 
all day in the dust and extreme heat, and reached Dodge Centre, 
where he expected to find an old and prominent friend, Hon. H. 
Barber, who had recently discovered some of the truths of 
spiritualism ; but the judge was absent, and the tired man 
laid up at the tavern, and soon went to the land of dreams, where 
the spirits refreshed his soul with an oblivion of the long walk 
and weary body. Next night the stage — for his limbs would not 
walk again — landed him at Watertown, where he found an 
honest and industrious mechanic (a Mr. Straw), whom the truth 
had made free and bold ; and he found a home with him, while 
they made an effort to get up, and off, several lectures. But most 
of the people who felt any interest in another life had taken 
stock in some one of the churches, and obtained through-tickets 
of them for themselves, and cared little about others, unless to add 
their names also to their respective churches, and therefore the 
lectures were attended only by a few. It was very discouraging ; 
but Mr. Straw, who was a good medium, saw and marked out 



202 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

much of the journey and its success, and named some of the places 
which the speaker would visit before his return ; and it all, and 
much more, was fulfilled. He was also designated as the tran- 
quillizer, and directed to magnetize mediums, and circles for their 
development, and to produce in them a calm and quiet state of 
mind. 

We have noted these little incidents about the home of the Lone 
One merely to show the condition at this particular time ; but 
shall no longer follow the winding path, but leap from point to 
point, as we notice a few of the more important events in his diary 
and travels. 

July 29. — Lectures on temperance to large audience at 
Lake Mills ; found much interest in spiritualism ; good circle, 
some mediums, much excitement, and a slight tendency to insanity 
in one or two partially-developed mediums, owing mainly to the 
distracted minds of friends and enemies around them. He had 
already learned that when mediums are being developed rapidly 
there should always be the most quiet, congenial, and sympathetic 
minds, and none others, around them, to insure success, and avoid 
insanity. But people were mostly ignorant of this, and some 
even glad to have cases of insanity, to bring reproach on, or oppo- 
sition to, the cause. 

By various modes of travel, much of which was on foot, he 
made his way through Janesville and Beloit ; had a pleasant 
visit at Rockton, and brought up in Rockford, where the cause 
had steadily gained strength and force since his last visit. Dur- 
ing this pleasant and profitable — - spiritually and pecuniarily — 
visit, he made the acquaintance of a Mrs. Morrel, of Lawrence, 
Mass., who had been raised from an invalid of fifteen years to a 
tolerable degree of health by the spirits ; and, emancipated from 
church thraldom, made to speak many able and eloquent truths 
by spirits for the new gospel, which she continues to preach at 
and about her home, " to this day." In a circle with a few in- 
quirers, with her for a medium, a clergyman inquired of the 
spirit the use and importance of prayer ; and the reply, purporting 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 203 

to come from Thomas Paine, was, " Prayer in your world is what 
staves and crutches are. It is for the lame and sick ; the well do 
not need it." The Lone One asked the priest if the answer was 
satisfactory, and he said, " Yes ; but I think we are all sick and 
lame." " Perhaps you Christians are," was the reply, and the 
end of the subject. 

Sunday, Aug. 21. — Had a large and delightful meeting in a 
grove near Elgin, and many speakers, both in and out of trance, 
and happy time for all present. 

Aug. 25. — Commenced a course of lectures in the Quaker 
meeting-house, at Battle Creek, Michigan. First visit to that place. 
Had good time and attention, and made the acquaintance of a 
noble soul, in Rev. J. P. Averill, who had grown out of his 
clerical garment, although it was of the most capacious, or uni- 
versal salvation, pattern, yet it was too cramping for him to feel 
free in. At this time he also visited the Bedford school, and the 
happy home of Reynolds Cornel, and the earnest and devoted 
soul of his son, Hiram Cornel, who had already sustained a 
school almost entirely at his own expense, for some years, when 
sectarianism, aristocracy, and bigotry, could neither get control nor 
stop it, although they had made every effort to do so, branding it 
as infidel, because the students were not taught to pray and read 
the Bible. The Lone One was much pleased with these people 
and their efforts ; but did not at this time think of making it his 
future home, and went on his way, bidding them God speed and 
good-by. 

At his lectures on Sunday there appeared an old Scotch Pres- 
byterian clergyman, of the bull-dog look, with great head and 
body, short, thick neck, savage countenance, English make and 
manners, and took up the war-club, by a defence of the Bible and 
the church against the lectures and the lecturer ; but the hearers 
said that he got badly used up, and was ready in the evening to 
give up the contest ; but the lecturer and his friends would not 
allow it, and forced him to try to speak in defence of himself and 
his former positions, but it was only a broken apology. Next day 



204 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

he was gone, with his Bibles, which he pretended to be peddling as 
an agent. It was afterwards ascertained that he had been sent for 
because he was a savage blackguard, more impudent and tyranni- 
cal than any clergyman in the place ; but he and they found there 
were " blows to take, as well as blows to give/' and those who were 
in glass houses were not the ones to throw stones. 

September 4. — Lectures in the Melodeon, in Cleveland, to 
good audience. He had spoken before in this hall, when on his 
way to, and returning from, the National Convention at Pittsburg, 
in '52 ; but he found only a few truly devoted souls in Cleveland 
at these early times, when it was a sacrifice of reputation and 
character, in the popular circles of the city, to defend the truth 
of spirit life and intercourse. But among the first and best medi- 
ums he found in Cleveland was a Mrs. P. M. Williamson (now 
Mrs. Price, clairvoyant physician, &c), and a Miss Jane Barnum, 
of Rockport. She being an old acquaintance, through her he 
received the most encouraging, cheering, consoling, and sympa- 
thizing communication he had ever received, and which proved 
true in due time, so far as it was prophetic. 

" My heart is proof against all fear 

Of what may chance in world like this ; 
But tender words and looks appear 
Like spirits from the realms of bliss. 

" They melt the heart hate cannot move ; 
They thaw the ice around it cast, 
And purer feelings loosened rove 
Amid its dreams of love so vast." 

September 7. — He reached the Carroll Springs, on the Kyan- 
tone, near the line of the States of Pennsylvania and New York, 
and found Dr. J. Mayhew, Dr. A. Underhill, Dr. Brown, Cora 
L. V. Scott, and her father and mother, and many others, congre- 
gated there, for some cause, as yet unknown to them, as to him, 
or others. They had a pleasant visit, and several good circles ; 
he lectured several times in the vicinity ; drank the sacred or holy 
water of the spring, which, for a time, had such magic effect on 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 205 

mediums, but none on him. In a few days bid them adieu, and 
made tracks eastward, but not until he had written, as he did reg- 
ularly, all that was interesting in his travels. Lectured in Laoni 
and Fredonia, N. Y., and, in company with the Scott family, 
with Cora for a medium, held some good circles for communica- 
tions. They visited a widow in Fredonia, whose husband had 
died a spiritualist in Wisconsin, and learned from her the way 
she silenced her Presbyterian mother and deacon brother, on the 
subject. They had persuaded her to return and reside with them 
in their ample home, and hoped to bring her again into the church- 
fold of creed (not Christ). When the proper time arrived, they 
asked her, mildly and pleasantly, if she had not felt it best to give 
up spiritualism, and return to the church. Her reply was, 
" Mother, you know I loved my husband, and he loved me, and 
we love each other still. Where he has gone, there I wish to go, 
be it heaven or hell, and I intend to live so as to accomplish that 
end ; and he lived and died a spiritualist, — so shall I." This was 
a clincher, and ended that subject finally, and at once. He also 
lectured in the transit- town of Dunkirk ; but a cargo of live hogs 
would then attract more people in Dunkirk than a legion of invis- 
ible spirits, however much evidence you could give of their exist- 
ence and intelligence. Two or three families, like Lot's in Sodom, 
saved the place, no doubt, from going into the lake, or down the 
road to Gotham. There was a half-way house between Dunkirk 
and Fredonia, which had a Hall in it, in which spiritualism had 
done a work ; and a voice went out of this Hall every day in 
defence of spirits, and their rights to be heard in our world. 

His next station was in West Randolph, N. Y., where he made 
the acquaintance of that devoted soul, and almost martyr to 
spiritualism, T. S. Sheldon, and several other good friends, and 
had a good time with circles and lectures. Here he made the 
acquaintance also of Mr. and Mrs. Love, — the latter, now Mrs. 
Mary F. Davis, — and, from the free expression of his views on mar- 
riage and kindred subjects, he soon had their confidence, and 
learned from them that they were legally married, but in no other 
18 



206 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 



sense ; that in the law and public opinion they were one, and in 
every other sense and respect two. That they were only waiting a 
chance to get a legal separation, without disgrace. He became well 
acquainted, at this and a subsequent visit, with the restless and ner- 
vous condition of Mr. L., and the quiet, beautiful, genial, and har- 
monized soul of Mary, with a heart full and overflowing with love, 
but which could only flow to one who in purity and devotion could 
return a kindred element, which Mr. L. could not. He was familiar 
with the trials and struggles of these two beings for freedom from a 
galling bondage into which they had unwisely, but voluntarily, 
entered, for which society would not forgive them. Her anxiety 
at this time was wholly for Mr. L., that he might marry the lady 
of his second choice ; and his to accomplish it, and save their rep- 
utation, which, in New York, seemed impossible ; and hence they 
were advised to go West, where the laws were more liberal. The 
clouds, with deep gloom and portentous forebodings, hung heavily 
over her horizon at this time ; and long after, she could see only 
the stigma of the fashionable and popular, and no avenue- to a 
home or a living business in this world ; and she looked over the 
Jordan, and longed to go where slander and scorn could not reach 
one who never did anything to merit it. But the Lone One 
encouraged her as well as he could, and urged her to take the 
field as a lecturer, and trust to the future, and, with confiding step, 
walk boldly to the struggle with the wicked laws, confident of 
purity, worth, and right. " When thou art sinking, give me thy 
hand," said the Lone One, " and all my strength shall come to 
thy aid, but walk in faith." It was interesting to the Lone One, 
some years after, when the lying slanders of pulpit and press 
accused A. J. Davis of causing all this trouble, and breaking up 
this family, &c, — when he knew all these facts and conditions to 
exist while Mr. Davis was living quietly and happily with his first 
wife, personally unknown to Mrs. L., and having never heard of 
her or her legal husband. But this was as near the truth as they 
reported in his own case, and many others ; and, as truth was not 
their object when preaching or writing about spiritualists, of course 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 207 

they would never correct their falsehoods when pointed out to 
them. If there was ever a being in this world who deserved hap- 
piness, or one who has found it, it is this same Mary F. Davis ; 
and certainly there is one soul glad for her " sunny-side " of life. 
Had a " season of prayer," and poured out the gospel to a crowd 
in Cuba and Rushford, as he went on his winding way to Roches- 
ter, to see those early patriots, Isaac, and Amy, and Charles, and 
others. 

September 30. — Mingled with a crowd at Syracuse, and 
found John 0. Wattles, Gen-it Smith, S. J. May, Lucy Stone, 
Antoinette L. Brown, and many other true souls, and saw and 
heard them speak at the "Jerry Rescue " celebration ; also Fred. 
Douglas, whom he had met before, but whose soul could not admit 
the light of spiritual freedom, as it had of political. 

Sunday, October 2. — He delivered a funeral discourse in the 
City Hall of Syracuse. Strange preacher he must have been, who 
had no prayers over the dead. On the cars he met a friend who 
invited him to call and dine at Oneida, with the Perfectionists ; 
and he did so, and found the first society of literal and practical 
Christians he had ever seen ; indeed, he did not believe there were 
any Christians who tried to live the doctrine and precepts, but 
here he found a society who had abandoned homes, houses, and 
lands, making all things common, as Jesus and the disciples did, 
and even fulfilling the command to leave parents and children, 
husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, for Christ's sake, and 
trying to live and realize the condition of heaven, where Jesus said 
there was no marrying nor giving in marriage. So they had none, 
but live as the disciples and angels of God were said to live. It was 
indeed a rich treat to find, in this land of pretenders, a society of 
real disciples, who try to practise the precepts of Christ ; but there 
they were, and there they are, with word and deed in harmony, 
trying to live so as to bring the kingdom on earth as it is in 
heaven, which so many have asked for in prayers, but never 
tried to practise. But, as the Lone One was neither a Christian 
nor a defender of that mode of life, nor a believer in it as the life 



208 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 



in heaven, or proper for our time, and as he did not believe in 
abandoning family and companions for anybody's sake, and he 
believed in true marriage, both here and in heaven, now and for- 
ever, as the best, and most holy, and sacred, and happy life for 
man and spirit, therefore, of course, he had no attraction to these 
Christians, which could induce him to cooperate with them. But 
plainly he could see that in social life either they or the Shakers were 
the only true followers of Jesus, and his example and precepts. 

Next day he was in New York city, and for many succeeding 
days in the Crystal Palace, on duty as commissioner, etc. The 
note in the diary says : Made the acquaintance of Dr. T. L. Nich- 
ols and Mrs. Mary Grove Nichols, but did not make anything 
else of them. The sphere of Mrs. N. was uncongenial, and his 
not attractive ; but he could not but admire and respect them as 
bold and daring souls, who dared to tell society of its false and. 
wicked acts, and take its scorn and contempt for pay. As such 
he viewed them, but as unharmonized souls in the struggles of life, 
with enemies within and without themselves ; but the worst 
within, and the chief of the group egotism, as it appeared to him. 
Visited the North American Phalanx, at Red Bank, N. Y. 
How like old times, and how like a home, did their unitary 
table seem ! But the seeds of a fatal disease were there, and they 
died soon after, and the mourners were numerous, and over the 
whole country ; but, like most mourners, they could not save the 
life, nor resuscitate the corpse. So they epitaphed it ; but, as we 
do not intend this for a Bible, nor a tomb-stone, we will not print 
the epitaph here. For the first time he now met that noble intel- 
lect, and very impressible early and able advocate, Hon. J. W. 
Edmonds, who had laid up his worldly fame for a martyr's crown, 
in the good cause. He found in him a true heart, and true friend 
to the new philosophy, and the most intellectual and influential 
advocate he had met with, and was highly pleased with his visit 
to his home. He also made the acquaintance of that more prac- 
tical and matter-of-fact man, Charles Partridge, who was at that 
time pecuniarily the bulwark of printed spiritualism in the city, and 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 209 

also the brother, who had adopted somewhat of a sliding scale, 
but whom he, in the days of the Univerccelum, had ever regis- 
tered as number one, William, — Fishbough,- — he told this brother 
he believed him either entangled in one of Swedenborg's hells, or 
one of Bunyan's quagmires, but thought, with help, he might be 
extricated, but not until he let go his hold on the sacred handle 
of the Idol-Bible. He also spent an hour at breakfast with that 
great man, who sprang from small beginning, who is by those who 
hate him called the " fool of the nineteenth century," but who will 
prove by his Tribune that he is " nobody's fool." From this brief 
acquaintance the Lone One concluded he was number one in every- 
thing but honesty, and no doubt had once been so in that quality, 
but long and hard service in politics had worn it below threadbare, 
and thus it became leaky to other subjects. On the spiritual phi- 
losophy he evidently had one foot on sea and one on land, and was 
neither fish or fowl ; but on three other subjects he was firm as a 
rock, and on two of them firm in the wrong side, and on one, in 
the right — slavery, tariff, and marriage ; but on the latter he had 
been very much jaded by James, and Andrews, and others, and was 
quite sore at that time. He also met many other distinguished 
persons, and among them one he had long desired to meet, in 
S. B. Brittan. In him he found talent, refinement, and pride ; the 
latter an obstacle which would prevent him from doing for human- 
ity what his uncommon ability would allow him to do if he could 
meet and mingle, heart and soul, with the world, as Jesus did, and 
feel its heart-beat, and respond to it ; but well the World's Child 
knew that a continued round of city luxuries, and city fashions 
and follies, had hampered and somewhat trammelled the noble and 
ardent soul, which was set like a diamond in this brain, and often 
shone with great brilliancy, in spite of the rubbish that surrounded 
it. He admired Mr. Brittan, but he loved J. K. Ingalls; he felt 
free and easy in the dignity and manhood of J. W. Edmonds, but 
restless and watchful with Greely, as if it was not safe to take 
his eyes off him. He learned much in this visit to Gotham to 
confirm his previous opinions of the relations of city and country. 
18* 



210 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 



A few minds in the commercial circles control the cities, and 
endeavor to control the country also. They control the business of 
the merchants, and bankers, and politics, and religion, of the rural 
districts, and regulate them by rules which they set up in the city. 
Some persons were unwilling that spiritualism should be an excep- 
tion to this custom of our country. The Lone One saw this, but 
felt sure there was a disappointment awaiting all who could set 
themselves up, with or without an organization, as the pivots or 
centres for this movement. He left the city, resolved not to labor 
for the reputation and influence of any person or persons, but for 
the cause of the Harmonial Philosophy. Not for man-glory or 
man-power, but for humanity and the race ; and although nothing 
was said on this subject, yet some persons felt and saw him and 
his object, and knew he would not aid them to centralize, nor 
labor for a central or city leadership; and hence, although he 
was one of the first lecturers in the field, and up to the autumn 
of '57 had given more lectures, and in more places, than any 
other person, on the subject of spirit-intercourse, and borne much 
persecution, made great pecuniary and personal sacrifices, yet the 
city papers and preachers seldom mentioned him, or gave notice 
of his labors, unless compelled to do it by his presence in the city. 
But this was what he wished, if his opinions were correct, that an 
effort at central control and leadership was made ; for he could nei- 
ther lead nor be led, but paddled his own canoe. His lone and 
independent mind could never be made to work in a harness, nor for 
any cause but that of God and man combined, so far as he knew it. 
Oct. 13. — Stood high on the rock-cliff at Winstead, Ct. 
Lectured in the valley to large audiences of free minds. Wrote 
a brief note to A. J. Davis, at Hartford, to notify him of an 
intended visit. He had never been in Hartford, nor met Mr. 
Davis, nor Mrs. Mettler, and Mr. D. had some curiosity to try her 
psychometric powers on the stranger. He took the note to her, 
and, without any knowledge on her part, whether the writer was a 
man, woman or child, mortal or spirit, and of course without 
seeing a word of its contents, she said : " The writer of this 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 211 

is a person whose moral and intellectual faculties are most 
perfectly and fully developed. He is given to much thought. 
His intuitive or spiritual nature is always his guide and prompter. 
He possesses much acquired knowledge and true wisdom ; vene- 
rates goodness and truth, let it proceed from what source it may. 
He is a true philosopher and philanthropist ; has a mind that will 
conquer all evil by its kind and suasive manner. He is benevo- 
lent and kind, and his feelings universal. He cannot be sectarian, 
neither can he bear the shackles of sectarianism or tyranny. 
Freedom of speech and action is his motto. He is unmoved when 
the mind is once established. Has many original ideas, which are 
easily and happily expressed, and by that expression he is enabled 
to do much good to his fellow-beings. He is actuated in what he 
says and does by principle, and a great love for truth. Firm and 
steadfast, whatever is undertaken by him will be carried through 
with much energy and determination. He can exercise much 
self-control — endeavors to subdue the lower faculties, and bring 
them into subjection to the higher ones. He loves that kind of 
mirth and enjoyment that will harmonize and happify the soul. 
Is constant and ardent in his attachments, seeking ever to pro- 
mote the happiness of all who surround him. He is cautious, but 
not timid. Deeply conscientious, and fond of the good opinions 
of men ; he has considerable self-esteem, sufficient to give him a 
feeling of independence and self-control. He is himself — what 
nature intended he should be. He is exceedingly fond of family 
and friends ; is constant and enduring under all trials of life. He 
is exceedingly fond of children, and pets, and everything beautiful 
in nature, — loves the wild-woods and their enchanting murmur, — 
loves woman for her virtues and intelligence. His principles are 
good, and his impulses truthful. His perceptive faculties are 
active, but the moral and spiritual nature predominates. He must 
be a person whose life is devoted to reforms, as his great motive 
seems to be the welfare and progress of the human race. I am 
quite sure he is a public speaker, and the ideas he would advance 
would be clear and lucid. His sphere is pleasing and agreeable." 



212 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 



Among the many tests of psychometry, given through Mrs. Mettler, 
there are very few mistakes ; and, indeed, it is yet to be ascertained 
there is one to be found among the hundreds of published cases. 
With suitable conditions, this art is fully reliable, and will in a few 
years be, with phrenology, the true guide to every person's true 
character, and enable us to put our trust ever in worthy persons, 
and avoid the unworthy and deceitful. 

Oct. 19. — In Hartford, and welcomed at the magnificent home 
of Mr. Brown, and soon find the home and hearts of Mr. and Mrs. 
Mettler, and witness her remarkable powers of describing diseases, 
and prescribing for them ; the most remarkable he had ever seen, 
as she was the most perfect medium for this faculty he had ever 
met. He now also met for the first time A. J. Davis, and found 
in him the happiest person he had ever found in this world. 
Although he was watching constantly by the couch of his dying 
companion, yet the sunshine of a harmonial and natural life was 
ever upon and filling his whole being. Without egotism or selfish- 
ness, he seemed to the Lone One, who had seen so much of human 
life, and been so long a student of nature, to be the first man he 
had ever met who had never been warped or twisted from a natu- 
ral growth by the strife and conflicts of society. He took courage 
now, for, with one true man in the world, he felt sure there was 
hope for the race. He was more strongly drawn to this man than 
ever to any one before, and felt his heart beat more in unison than 
with any other ; for he seemed to be wholly and fully devoted to the 
welfare of the race, and the cause of truth. He did not accept all of 
the philosophy that had been given the world through him ; yet he 
accepted the man, and ever after loved him as a brother — in spirit 
— not in the flesh, for in the flesh he was not allowed to have a 
brother by the laws of his native state. A childlike honesty and 
playfulness, with the wit and acumen of well-disciplined minds, 
was about Mr. D.'s manners ; the schoolboy and philosopher blended, 
the affections of a woman with the firmness of a stoic. One would 
hardly believe these extremes of character could blend, and yet 
they do and must in a true man. 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 213 

As the history of this seer has recently been published in the 
" Magic Staff" those who desire can read it there ; and we will 
not comment more upon him, except to say that his companion 
passed to the other kingdom a few days after this interview, and 
left him leaning on his Magic Staff, gazing at the stars, and talk- 
ing to the earth, until the voice of his second companion — the 
suffering victim of an unhappy marriage, before alluded to — 
reached him, and called him again to social and domestic life and 
relations. He was always happy, in sunshine or shade ; for the 
angels watched over him, and he was their messenger. Among 
the interesting curiosities visited in Hartford was the Charter Oak, 
under the branches of which he was sheltered from a passing 
shower. And the sewing-silk manufactory of the Cheeney Brothers, 
at Manchester, where the sunshine of the Harmonial Philosophy 
had placed their establishment far in advance of others, where the 
old theology bears rule or ruin. His lectures were well attended 
in Hartford, and his visit made pleasant and agreeable. 

Oct. 31. — In Boston for the first time since he moved to the 
West. Soon at the house of John M. Spear, that most singular, 
highly eccentric, and devotedly honest and philanthropic, of all 
mediums. The Lone One was greatly pleased with, and strongly 
attracted to, this man, and received through him the singular title 
of the " Elementizer," and a commission to do great things if he 
could, mentally and experimentally, with the elements. At this 
time some intelligence was directing, through this willing instru- 
ment, the erection of a peculiar machine in High Bock Tower, 
at the home of the Hutchinsons, in Lynn; and the Lone One 
was invited, or directed, to lend magnetic aid to the medium, 
and the machine, etc. For a few days he watched the process 
and progress of this intelligence. Fully satisfied that it was in- 
dependent, in its existence and designs, of Mr. Spear, or any other 
person ; but he did not believe it a safe intelligence to direct the 
business affairs of this world, and yet he thought it possible that 
some discovery might be brought to light by such power, through 
the agency of mediums. The machine was at length completed at 



214 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

great expense to somebody, and, as it did not start a perpetual 
motion, it was condemned by the ediet of public opinion, and a 
writ of scorn and contempt sent after it. The parents took it up 
and fled into Egypt with it, and it still sojourns there, while the 
parents have returned to build other and very different machines, 
some more, and some equally successful. The second day of his 
sojourn he was in the pinnacle of High Rock Tower, with J. M. 
Spear and Mr. Hewet, and one more, when some intelligence 
entranced Mr. Spear, and directed Mr. H. to " write what the 
spirit saith to the wanderer. " It then proceeded to describe the 
"World's Child as follows : "This man possesses, in an eminent 
degree, several very important elements of character, which, when 
combined, help to the formation of a very remarkable person. 
First, This man is not what he is thought to be. Quite erroneous 
judgments have been formed of him, insomuch that he has been 
strongly condemned where he should have been highly approved. 
He is thought to have a disregard for sacred things ; but this is 
not true. He very highly regards sacred things ; but things 
which some regard sacred do not appear to his mind to be 
sacred. For instance, men and women regard the Bible as a 
book sacred ; but this man does not so esteem the book. But he 
opens it and examines critically its interiors, and perceives the 
sacreds which are in the interiors. As it were, he does not 
regard the outer covering of the nut, but picks, and picks, and 
picks, until he extracts meats from the outer covering ; so he ex- 
tracts the meats from the book, and they are sacred to him. But 
he does not much care about the outside, if he can get the sacreds 
of the book. Second, This man does not seem to care to talk 
much about God. He does not much care whether there is a God 
or not ; but he sees certain laws by which he discovers the uni- 
verse is controlled. He hears the music which they make, and is 
enraptured with the music; but he does not concern himself 
much about the maker. He is very peculiar in this respect. 
Third, If there is any one thing which this man abhors more than 
any other, it is dissimulation. He is a very rare specimen of 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 215 

honest speech. He does not much care whether he is liked or 
disliked for this. Tell him he must not say a thing, and he 
replies, * Who are you ? ' and he will say it all the stronger. This 
man is a thorough student, and that which he most studies is 
mind. He examines persons, and forms correct opinions of 
minds. He reads minds with great accuracy, and he does this by 
greatly unfolded intuitive faculties. Ordinarily he would not be 
considered a student ; but he is a perpetual student of mind. This 
man calls forth large quantities of respect, because of strictest in- 
tegrity. He never stoops to conquer ; but he conquers because he 
refuses to stoop. Give him ample time, and he will entirely 
silence all opposers. He is a most adroit manager in the polem- 
ics. He plants himself on certain fixed principles, and no one 
can move him ; and this is the secret of his polemical success. 
This man is also a great admirer of the beautiful as exhibited in 
laws. In a high sense, he is a student of law. While he is cele- 
brated as a polemic, yet he knows not of bitterness. With 
greatest delight, when he had overcome his opponent, he would 
feed, clothe, and instruct him. This man has an important mis- 
sion to perform, and that mission he will faithfully perform to the 
utmost of his ability." 

This quaint delineation was one of many which the intelligences 
had given through Mr. Spear, and in which they usually were 
more correct than in mechanical constructions. While he was 
confined in his mediumship to healing, and reading character, and 
giving personal communications, he was very accurate and useful ; 
but in his more recent labors he is not appreciated by many, if 
he is really in a useful work. 

Among the acquaintances of this visit were Mr. and Mrs. A. E. 
Newton, two as genial and true souls as God had standing in 
cases in Boston ; and Messrs. Seaver and Mendum, of the Investi- 
gator, which had, for so many years, furnished the religious 
dessert for his family reading. Met Mr. T. S. Sheldon at Mr. 
Spear's. Sleeping one night in the same room with Mr. Sheldon, 
he saw, for the first time in his life, a spirit bending over the bed, 



216 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 



looking apparently at Mr. S. He carefully viewed the beautiful 
form, enraptured with the vision ; and, on describing the form to 
Mr. Sheldon in the morning, he recognized his deceased wife, who 
often communicated to him. He was neither asleep nor in a 
trance, but saw, as he thought at the time, the light form in the 
dark room with his eyes. "John S. Adams and Hattie were also 
among the good and true spirit-friends he found on this visit, and 
several others ; but we must pass on to the end of the line. His 
lectures were well attended, and he was richly paid in the cur- 
rency of heaven for this protracted visit. For many years he 
had desired to speak in the Melodeon of Boston, so long and so 
favorably known as the " stamping-ground " of reformers ; and 
now the obtained wish gave little satisfaction, but the subject 
gave much. Mrs. Newton exceeded all vision-mediums he had 
ever met, and through her he received many of the most rich and 
highly-pleasing pictures of the future of himself and others, and 
of scenes in the hereafter of both spheres ; but it was not always 
certain to which life they belonged. 

Nov. 14. — He was at Manchester, N. H., and called on the fam- 
ily of Hon. M. Norris, who furnished the last home he ever enjoyed 
in New Hampshire before his emigration ; but Mr. Norris was not 
at home, and Abby and her pets had all grown out of their early life 
and condition by the long line of democratic honors Mr. N. had re- 
ceived at Washington. For many years he had been compelled to 
condemn much of the political course of his old friend, and by that 
means had grown nearly out of their friendship ; but he was glad 
to meet the little woman he had once known so well, and esteemed 
so highly. She was now the mother of a long line of children, 
and some in each sphere ; but the dead ones were dead to her 
faculties, as was her husband also soon after. Returned to Bos- 
ton, and doubled the visit over, and the last was better than the 
first. Hopedale, with a call on Rev. Adin Ballou, a pure soul, 
devoted to social reform and Christ, through the Bible ; one of 
the best of men in all but his theology, and that is the mildest and 
best that the Bible, without, or placed above nature, can furnish. 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 217 

He goes as far as the creed he has set up will allow, but dare not 
step one point over. He is not like a convict, with ball and 
chain, but like a martyr, tied to a stake, from which he cannot 
escape ; and yet his honest heart is devoted, and would raise man 
to a far better and higher condition, if it could, than other sects 
will allow. His social efforts will, no doubt, die out soon after he 
does, as did those of Happ. 

Nov. 26. — In Springfield, Mass., and found a home with the 
"Lion of the tribe of Spiritualists, '' and in some respects found 
him rightly named. Had the most remarkable circle for per- 
formances on piano at Mr. Bangs', in which the instrument was 
believed by all present to be played without human hands, and 
often lifted from the floor, and the strings thrummed, etc. ; but 
the room was dark, and of course they could not see what power 
did do it, but all believed it was spirits. 

After doubling his visit at Hartford, also, December 2d he 
brought up in Troy, N. Y., where he met the most remarkable 
medium, of his kind, he had ever met, in P. B. Randolph. His 
peculiarity consisted in his being, when well controlled, the best 
and most profound speaker and reasoner he had ever met in his 
life, normal or abnormal, and when not controlled he was simple 
and rude. But he had a good-shaped and large brain, and of 
peculiar texture, but it was uncultivated. He also met here many 
new friends, among them one of the finest and most delicate and 
sensitive souls in a modest and difiident female, with a weak bodj^ 
and excellent mind, in Melinda Ball ; a person who, with proper 
conditions, might be an ornament to the race, as she now is to her 
little circle. For some years he corresponded with her, to bring 
out her soul, and it unfolded like a rose in the sun and showers 
of June. 

Her beautiful letters, and especially the poems, — several of 
which were published, — he still retains, as mementoes of a friend- 
ship that will be renewed in the life to come. He also had another 
battle and complete triumph over another Scotch Presbyterian 
priest at this place ; and so completely conquered him as to get 
19 



218 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 



an invitation to his house. Had a circle in the house of a Meth- 
odist priest, and good manifestations. Had a double hold on 
Troy — lengthened visit. Lectured at Ballston Spa and Can- 
astota. At the latter place used a church, with preacher in 
attendance, etc. Next in the City Hall in Syracuse, but had 
small audience and cold time ; which was more than made up at 
LeRoy, where he met the best of friends, and received the most 
pay he had received at any one place since he was in the field, 
which assisted to make up for the many small fees, and no fees, etc. 
Somehow, he got over the road to Cuba, Alleghany Co., N. Y., and 
there, in the night, the year 1858 died and was buried, and the 
successor was born there the same night ; but he did not see it 
born, for he was in the land of dreams, not being a Methodist 
watcher. 

Section II. 

1854. ITINERATING, AND PREACHING THE GOSPEL OF LOVE AND 

ETERNAL LIFE. 

a There is a secret tie that binds 
Congenial minds together ; 
A silent mingling heart with heart, 
Almost unknown to either. 

" And this sweet influence may be felt 
When not a word is spoken, 
And to the outward sense there seems 
To be no sign or token. 

" Yes, those who ne'er had met before 
May meet and then be parted, 
And, though no words may pass between, 
Feel they are kindred-hearted. 



And when such spirits meet and join 

In converse with each other, 
How free the interchange of thought ! — 

No feelings there to smother. 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 219 

" It is not fashion's formal chat, 
The inmost soul congealing ; 
But the free, unbridled tongue 
O'erflows the fount of feeling. 

" And though they part and sever wide, 
As to an outward union, 
Still they may often know and feel 
A near and sweet communion. 

" They meet not with the bow and nod, 
A cold and formal meeting ; 
But 't is with open heart and hand, 
A true and friendly greeting. 

" 0, give to me a few such friends, 
Who are with life contented, 
And, free from Custom's heartless forms, 
Our souls shall be cemented. 

" I care not whether rich or poor, 
Of high estate or lowly, 
If pure in heart and noble minds, 
Of purpose high and holy." 

New Year's day was cold and stormy, and at six in the morning 
the lecturer was in a sleigh with a friend, and they rode fourteen 
miles in the Alleghany winter, and, almost frozen, reached the 
warm fire of Mr. Houser, and the warm heart of Mrs. Houser, at 
Rushford, N. Y., and in good time the comfortable church was 
also warmed, and sounded with the new gospel-song. Mrs. H., 
with " Bloomer costume,'' bold and free, and with mind well stored, 
and intellect and affections well developed, was deaconed for that 
town; and the wanderer returned with his friend to the Cuba 
home, where they were rejoicing yet, over the birth of the new 
year, and joined in the glee of Cora, Minna, Hattie, Dr. Brown, 
and others, till " New Year's " glided into the busy hum of ordi- 
nary life. Next day found the doctor and the three girls at La- 
oni, and the lecturer at Randolph, where again he met his friend 



220 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

Sheldon, and the two unhappy and unluckily-mated Loves, and to 
them renewed his advice to go West, and part where the laws were 
more liberal. Mary had already begun to lecture on woman's 
rights and wrongs, and had good success ; and on Sunday, June 
8th, he spoke twice, and she in the evening, in the hall, to good 
audiences, and they seemed to be well appreciated. But very few 
then knew the condition of Mr. and Mrs. L., for they treated each 
other as brother and sister ought to do in public and private life ; 
and this was so much more tender and affectionate than husbands 
and wives usually appear, that people often remarked, " How 
happy and loving Mr. and Mrs. L. are ! " " What a happy 
couple ! " etc. ; because they were free in all but the legal bondage, 
and seeking the means to break that. 

Monday morning Mr. L. handed her, with a parting kiss, into 
the full coach, where she found a seat by the side of the Lone 
One, and rode to Little Valley to meet her appointment ; and he 
passed on to Cattaraugus to meet his, and this was the last time he 
ever saw Mr. L., or met her as Mrs. L. Soon after they repaired 
to Ohio, and parted, never more to meet except as acquaintances ; 
for the law of Indiana decided, through its court, that she ought 
and should be a free woman, until she should again voluntarily 
bind herself. There was one other case among his friends, — on 
some accounts a far more trying one than this, — in Mrs. H. F. 
M. B., of Cleveland ; but in that he did not feel at liberty to 
advise, because the parties were not agreed, and did not mutually 
consult him. At last that chain broke of its own accord, and let 
one of the noblest souls out of a social dungeon, to shine on soci- 
ety and speak of an experience of her own, and become a " Con- 
suelo " to others and the country at large. His line of march soon 
brought him to Dr. Brown's, where were the three girls, Cora rapidly 
developing for her glorious and angelic mission, and the others — 
an aunt and cousin — with her for company. He stayed several 
days, and lectured in Laoni and Fredonia ; but none but those who 
have seen the cesspools of gossip in commotion can believe the 
extent of suspicion, jealousy, gossip, slander, and falsehood, which 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 221 

followed, and fell from the tongues of " priest and levite " on Dr. 
B., and also on the lecturer, because he occasionally met these 
and other female mediums. When the stolen letter story was 
added to these, such was the jealousy that it was imprudent for 
him to go into a house where there were more females than males, 
or into a house where there were unmarried ladies, or ladies with- 
out their husbands, unless there were other men present to guard 
them. This sensitiveness even affected some who called themselves 
spiritualists, and some simpletons were afraid their wives would 
leave them if they made the acquaintance of this reformer, when 
they could find not a single case where he had advised a separa- 
tion, except where it was mutually called for. But this current of 
slander and falsehood did not affect his calm and happy soul. His 
life and his home were happy, and he moved fearlessly on his journey 
and mission, with a pure, and free, and happy heart. These slan- 
ders often gave him small audiences, when he should have had 
large ones ; and thus the enemies rejoiced, and felt well paid for 
their trouble. To these and many other girls he was always like 
a father and guardian, as they ever did and ever will bear testi- 
mony ; and now, when the three here referred to are all married 
and settled in life, they remember and esteem him as the best of 
friends. But where are the slanderers ? Only hatching some 
new theme for gossip. Many a beautiful and encouraging message 
he received through Cora from Mrs. Hemans, Frances Wright, 
and others, on the occasions of these meetings with her ; and his 
soul was thus refreshed and watered from a fountain from which 
few could, or would, drink. 

January 19. — The girls went to Buffalo, where other friends 
were prepared to receive and appreciate them ; for Cora had al- 
ready done much in that city to awaken in a few families the spirit 
of inquiry after spirit-life, and Stephen Albo, Stephen Dudley, 
Capt. Pratt, and others, were on hand to find homes and circles 
for her. The lecturer went the other way, and brought up among 
the pine stumps and trees of Columbus, Pa., where, at the home 
19* 



222 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

• 

of Judge Judson, he had a happy visit, and soon found good audi- 
ences in the church to listen to his gospel. 

January 25. — He returned and commenced the first course of 
lectures in Buffalo ever given in that city in favor of the new 
philosophy; and had a good attendance in Townsend Hall, not- 
withstanding the celebrated " Buffalo doctors " had issued their 
extinguisher in a pamphlet some time before, but which finally 
extinguished their hopes of fame in all coming time. Buffalo 
promised what she finally exhibited by the unwearying efforts of 
S. Dudley, S. Albo, and others — a defence and support of the 
new and most important discovery of the age. During this visit 
he met the remarkable medium, Miss Sarah Brooks, through whom 
such rich musical seances have since been given. She was at this 
time just beginning to reach that development, and the guitar and 
violin could be sounded slightly through her, as a medium, by 
spirit-power. 

February 1, he began his visit and lectures in Painesville, 
Ohio. Had a good time, and a large audience. That indefatiga- 
ble pioneer and defender of the faith, Joel Tiffany, had labored 
much in that place, and many minds had received light and 
reached freedom. His audiences here, as elsewhere, increased in 
number and interest to the end of the course, which was given 
Sunday eve, February 5 ; soon after which, he was again with 
his old and true friends in Cleveland, where H. F. M. B. and 
many others always welcomed him as a laborer in the field of 
reform, on the side of human rights, and as one ever in the field, 
browned by the sun and hardened by the toil, but fanned by 
breezes from the spirit-world, and watered by the Ganymedes 
with the nectar of heaven. 

At Grafton he found a "fallow ground," and broke it up, and, 
for a wonder, gave a course of lectures in an Episcopal church, to 
large audiences. The truth he planted there was watered by 
more than one " Apollos," and has never ceased to grow, although 
there are a few tares among the wheat, and occasionally a defender 
of the existence of a Devil may be seen there ; and, although they 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 223 

have several churches, yet it is not probable they can collect more 
than one bundle of tares, at the harvest. But it is not yet sure 
whether the Methodist or Presbyterian band will hold them. 

His next station was Ravenna, where the members of one 
church had been converted to spiritualism, and of course carried 
their church-house (and it was a good one) with them, for the new 
gospel, and always found in it a place for lecturers and preachers 
of " glad tidings of great joy to all people." Happy hearts, with 
listening ears, filled the church on Sunday, and he was happy and 
•■ filled with the spirit on the Lord's day." Next station was 
Middlebury, where an early friend of him and the cause, and a 
friend and admirer of Robert Owen, had recently moved from 
Cleveland, and prepared the way for the voice of the Lone One. 
Next station called was New Brighton, Pa., where the true man, 
Milo Townsend, and his happy wife, were happy to welcome the 
wanderers, and where he also found one of God's kind of homes at 
James Irwin's, where six daughters made the woods and " Alum 
Rocks " resound with glee, if not music. But the parents had 
quartered with the Quakers rather too long to give much music 
to the organizations of the girls. This family he ever remembered 
and loved as among the happiest and best of his friends ; not rich 
In money, but rich in love to the pure and good. 

About these days, and for some time before, Amelia Welby be- 
came a devoted friend and guardian spirit, and often visited him 
from her home ; and ever, when through mediums she could do so, 
gave him words of heart-cheer, more sweet and affectionate than 
those of her beautiful poems, written while she dwelt in her body. 
Here he also made the acquaintance of the mother and brother 
and sister-in-law of Grace Greenwood, and found in them devel- 
oped and harmonized souls, fully imbued with the spirit of the new 
gospel. Elma, the eldest of the Irwin daughters, he had met 
long before at the home of W. S. Courtney, in Pittsburg, and 
found her then with a soul ripened for an gel- visits, and a medium- 
ship worthy a brighter record on the historic page than it found ; 
for, soon after, the marriage tie consigned her to a quiet and happy 



224 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

obscurity and life. But at this and one later visit she was at the 
home under the cliff of Alum Rocks, in the freedom of girlhood 
and buoyancy of youth, and the angels could use her and one 
other of the sisters to whisper to the listening ears of mortals. 

Nest, oyer the winding way to Columbus, Ohio, where only a 
few members of the legislature attended, with a few others, his 
course of lectures, which closed in time for the arrival of Judge 
Edmonds and Dr. Dexter, to meet their appointment for two 
lectures on the same subject. He had an interesting visit with 
the judge, who, for a social chat and short visit, in point of 
interest and information on this subject, is not excelled by any 
medium or spiritualist in the nation, as many persons can testify. 

March 11. — In Cincinnati, lecturing successfully. Soon made 
the acquaintance of Caroline Brown, a noble and true woman, if 
the world has one, who was struggling, against . fearful odds, to 
establish a character, reputation, and practice, as physician and 
surgeon, with her shingle hung out on the street-side, and her 
diploma in her office, in which the wise faculty, following the old 
Latin form, had declared she was a true man, etc. He also met 
the blind phrenologist, F. Bly, whose skilful hand, passed scien- 
tifically over his head, brought the expression that he must 
make a mark on the page of life that would be of value in coming 
time, if not in his day. During his short stay he became a warm 
and devoted friend of Caroline, whose bold and energetic charac- 
ter, blended with a most affectionate and loving heart, and a pure 
and noble mind, refined and developed by a thorough education 
and discipline, he almost worshipped as the model woman, or 
what he had ever contended woman should be ; and a few letters 
in correspondence subsequently proved all he had believed of her. 
A defect in the nerves of her eyes, which was impairing her vision, 
seemed to yield to his magnetism, and furnished an excuse to her 
excellent female partner, who did not need one, for his frequent 
calls during his short stay in the city. At this visit he made 
many warm friends, and parted with them with mutual regrets 
and hopes of future meetings. 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 225 

March 25. — Made his first visit to Richmond, Pa., where he 
awakened and renewed the interest in the new gospel, and made 
some warm and permanent friends for himself and the cause ; and 
this subsequently became one of the strongholds of the Harmonial 
Philosophy. Down the winding channel of the Ohio, and up the 
Mississippi, on steamboat, from Cincinnati to St. Louis, was not 
unpleasant, but the reverse, in all except the society and tobacco- 
stench, which on the river-boats is almost unendurable to one 
who has a body not saturated with the poison of the filthy 
weed. 

April 1. — Lands in St. Louis, and homes with a Mr. Hedges, 
and an old constitutional-convention colleague in Judge Hyer, 
whose estimable lady was a medium. Mr. Hedges was one of the 
early and able advocates and experimenters in magnetism and 
spiritualism, since, extensively known as a business man of Cincin- 
nati and Philadelphia. Met R. P. Ambler, the developed me- 
dium, and interesting and intelligent speaker, and an early editor 
of the Spirit Messenger. And John M. Spear had been sent by 
spirit-direction to the city, to ordain Mr. A., and for other pur- 
poses supposed by him to be of more importance. Mrs. E. J. 
French had also been directed there by spirits, from Pittsburg. 
Here the Lone One made the acquaintance of this remarkable 
woman, who had been a medium many years in the Methodist 
church, acceptable to them while she called it the power of God, 
or the "Holy Ghost" But when she found it was of ghosts who 
were not more holy than other human beings, and told the truth 
about it, then they cast her out, and said it was of the Devil. Her 
healing and other medium powers were remarkable and peculiar, 
as many have testified. He also made the acquaintance of that 
public and highly talented defender of woman's, and human, rights, 
Frances D. Gage, and registered her in his head and heart as one 
who was laboring here, for the reward hereafter, even though she 
had some doubts of that, or any reward, except in ner conscious- 
ness of doing her duty. There was much spiritua. power and 
influence in the city at this time, and the cause seemed highly 



226 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

prosperous. At Alton he next found a warm reception, and gave 
several lectures, and then moved over the road to the prairie vil- 
lage of Bloomington, and quartered with an ex-clergyman, while 
he used a church to lecture in; and, April 28, reported progress 
at his old friend's, N. E. Dagget, of Elgin, where one of the best 
of families was always as glad to see him as if he were one of 
the household. At this time a church door was opened for 
him, and he preached the new gospel in the old " shop." 

May 1. —-Dr. Haskell was reporting his progress in searching 
for evidence, to the Lone One, in his own elegant home at Rock- 
ford. He had found evidence in abundance, and his heart was 
full to overflowing. Many warm friends, in this beautiful city, 
welcomed him with heartfelt expressions that did his soul good; 
and he felt that he was valued, and determined, with renewed 
energy, to be worthy of all their friendship. A delightful visit 
with the three sisters at Rockton, and the parting kiss was given 
to the prairie wind of Illinois, for that time. And, by the 12th 
of May, he had reached the lake at his old Southport station, and 
stood by the apple-tree grave of his boys' bodies on the sand- 
bank, amid the marble and granite slabs, which told both lies and 
truths of those who were both living and dead. But the tree told 
no lies, and was a fit emblem of the living boys, whose epitaph it 
was. Milwaukie heard his voice again, as he passed along to 
his valley home, where he arrived on the 19th, after an absence of 
ten months, during which time not one week had failed to bring 
one or more letters to his family from him, and, in small sums, 
all the money he had received, except that used for his expenses. 
Once more he was in the home with his happy family, and re- 
counting the many incidents of travel to the wife and delighted 
children, and then examining their progress, which was not slow. 

" Welcome home ! " said the mate ; " for 

* I would not have a servile throng 
Press round to bow the knee, 
But one light, free, and eager step 
Haste homeward unto me. 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 227 

■ I would not have a sumptuous couch 
"When pain had laid me low, 
But one dear arm to fold my form, 
One hand to press my brow. 

* I would not have proud marble piled 
Upon my lowly head. 
But simple stone and grassy mound, 
And one to weep me dead. 

€ I would, beloved, to thee and me 
The priceless pearl be given, 
That thy true heart may meet mine own, 
And each love each, in heaven.' " 

During his short visit at home, and the pleasant excursion of 
himself and wife up and down the Neenah, and to several new 
towns on its banks, he related much of the reception he had met 
with in his travels ; told her of the excellent homes to which he 
was ever made a welcome guest, — of the warm greetings, the love 
and sympathy, he had received from both spheres ; and how his 
soul was overpaid for its Jong, dark night of doubt, coldness, and 
death, through which it had passed ; and how gloriously he had 
triumphed over the slanders and falsehoods of his enemies, leaving 
in them the stings of guilty consciences, and his forgiveness ; how 
the demand for his services increased, and the bright hopes before 
him, — not of wealth, but of a happy reward in the life to come, 
and the love of kindred beings while here. These renewed her 
hope, inspired her with confidence, and cheered her on her way, 
which was now rapidly growing light and pleasant. He lectured 
several times at the valley hail, to audiences composed of most of 
the decent, intelligent, and respectable, of the vicinity. Daring 
these travels, and especially when at home, he wrote much for the 
press, and on various subjects, — among the rest a criticism on 
H. C. Wright's and T. L. Nichols' works on marriage, in which 
he did not wholly endorse either, but nearly that of H. C. Wright. 
Writing and speaking on this subject freely, and not endorsing or 
sustaining the popular errors and prejudices on one side, nor en* 



228 -LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

dor sing the theories on the other, of course brought him directly 
between the armies, where each shot at him, and tried to drive 
him to the other rank, but all in vain. As an old lady aptly re- 
marked, they only shot him ahead in the path of right and duty, 
upward and outward, alone. Henry, however, and his friends, 
were not of the army that tried to hit him ; for they knew and 
appreciated his honesty, and his nearness to their teachings, and 
so did many individuals and personal friends of both armies ; but 
the officers of each army had ordered him killed. Still he was 
invulnerable. 

June 29. — He delivered the funeral discourse of Isaac Lewis, 
an elderly and esteemed citizen of an adjoining town. Thus he 
was installed a preacher of the gospel of " life unto life." 

July 4. — E. Daniels delivered an address, and the Lone One 
looked on, for the first time for several years, without feeling or 
taking a part ; for he had now separated himself entirely from 
politics and popular oratory, and become only a preacher of the 
gospel of reform and the future. Having visited and lectured at, 
and in the vicinity of, his home for near six weeks, on the 7th of 
July (the lucky Friday) he started again for a long journey of 
indefinite miles and months, and landed first night in a circle at 
Fond-du-lac. On Sunday he waked up the sleepers at Sheboygan 
Falls, and started a commotion that soon collected the means, and 
built a free church, neat and capacious, which he had subsequently 
the honor of first making a speech in, before it was finished. Met 
again the kind welcomes of his friends in Milwaukie, and escaped 
the curses of his enemies, and passed on to meet other good souls 
at Genesee and Palmyra ; and, on the 15th, parted with the Pal- 
myra friends in Milwaukie, and closed one of the best and hap- 
piest visits of his life with those best and purest of friends, the 
Higgins family. Stopped at most stations where the spirits had a 
station-house, and especially at Waukegan, to examine that re- 
markable medium, Mrs. Seymour, who writes on her arm in raised 
letters, without touching it, and writes names, and other tests of 
individual spirits, in that way. Made the acquaintance of the 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 229 

Baker family, — singers, — and of Peter Saxe, the better brother 
of the poet. Short stay in Chicago ; but switched at Battle 
Creek and laid over, and visited again the Cornell home, and 
became more attached and interested at each succeeding visit. 
Did not yet resolve to make it a new home. Found friends at 
several new stations, among them Bellevue, Albion, and Jackson ; 
and brought up at the tavern-home of that true friend of both 
worlds, N. Stone, of Detroit. 

August 13. — In Detroit large audiences attended, and were 
pleased ; but subsequently unfavorable circumstances and incom- 
petent teachers dampened the ardor and slackened the speed here, 
as in many other places, more than the enemies could. A terri- 
ble crash and rattling of broken dishes near his head, on the 
steamboat, in the dark night, on the river, started, him next from 
his sleep. He soon learned that a vessel had run her bow-pole 
into the pantry, and waked up the passengers, some with screams 
and fright, or prayers, or curses, according to their respective re- 
ligious beliefs. But he soon " bedded down " again, for he had 
paid fare to Cleveland, and was not so easily to be cheated out of 
it ; and in the morning he stood on the bank in the Cleveland city 
overlooking the lake and its vessels, calm and happy as a sainted 
judge. Had an excellent visit with many good friends, but his 
lectures did not call large audiences. The cause lay quiet at that 
time in the public mind. He was constantly learning of new cases 
of misery and suffering from unhappy marriages ; and constantly 
his soul was called out in sympathy for these sufferers, and the 
trials of martyrs. But he often asked, Where is the remedy, and 
what is it ? Knowledge of ourselves, and the laws of our being, 
and relations to one another, seemed the only ones he could dis- 
cover ; and these seemed distant, and not easily reached by society 
while it was running its mad career after wealth, fashion, religion, 
and glory. 

September was scattering its autumn shades when he visited 
again that romantic spot, New Brighton, and the Alum Bocks, 
and met the happy faces there. Again he found the happy face 
20 



230 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

of W. S. Courtney in Pittsburg, and turned the corner on New 
Brighton. Every traveller ought to visit this place once, and see 
where Grace Greenwood used to climb the rocks and paddle in 
the brooks, in the days of her girlhood, which gave her the noble 
body and excellent case for her expanded soul. 

Sunday r , September 24. — - A. J. Davis lectured in the Melodeon 
in Cleveland morning and evening, and the Lone One in the after- 
noon ; and certainly their philosophy harmonized, as their minds and 
feelings did. His former opinions of the honest and happy-hearted 
seer were confirmed, and he both loved and esteemed him, and ever 
after registered and reported him as the " happiest man that 
lives." He coasted around the vicinity of Cleveland, and lectured 
almost constantly until October 10th. He brought up again at 
the office of Carrie, in Cincinnati, overjoyed to learn of her pros- 
perity and success in her cherished art of healing, in which she 
had studied and struggled so long, and suffered so much. Large 
audiences, as usual, came to hear him in that city. He followed 
his subject and the calls to many places ; but among the most 
attractive were Cincinnati and Richmond, and afterwards Dayton 
more than either. 

October 26. — Met Mrs. Thomas, the preacher of the new gos- 
pel, at Middlebury, Ohio, and assisted her over some of the theo- 
logical rocks that had been stumbling-blocks in the way of her 
progress. She ever after had more freedom. Also met one of 
God and Nature's tall specimens of human life, light, and beauty, 
whose gospel-mission has since commenced, and whose voice and 
actions have gone forth in battle " for freedom and reform." May 
God and the angels bless her noble soul, and impel her on her way, 
was and is his prayer for her ! She deserves a better fate than 
circumstances have given her, but so do many who have harder 
ones. It seems, after all the speculating about "free agency," 
that we are creatures of circumstances ; and how much we can do 
to make or modify circumstances with the aid of circumstances is 
not yet known. About this time the thread of correspondence, 
which had been spun out to near five years' length quite evenly, 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 231 

except the knot at the point of theft, was twisted off by a lady, 
supposed to be a mutual friend, for reasons probably known to 
her, and it was never after tied up; so the spools were laid away 
for future use ; and if they are ever wove into a web, it will make 
a garment that will answer to wear to and into heaven ; for it 
was pure as the robes of angels which cover their affections. 

October. — Down the road he moves, with short stops in Buf- 
falo, Rochester, Auburn, Syracuse, Utica, and Troy, to Spring- 
field, Mass., and met there again good friends, and that feeble 
body and excellent medium for quiet, and pleasant, and reliable 
communications, Miss Angeline Minn, through whom many excel- 
lent messages have been given, that the public have read without 
knowing the gentle and obscure author. Met Lucy Stone at 
Hartford, and bade her farewell, as she was about to take a voy- 
age in the sea of matrimony, from which her return was doubtful, 
and in which so many are totally lost, and others shipwrecked, a 
few of whom get back to shore. He hoped the silvery tones of 
her attractive voice would give a farewell address to the friends 
of freedom before she started, on the ship Ceremony, for Black- 
welVs Island; but she went off soon after, only registering her 
name at the station, without reserving the right to return when 
she pleased. Many loved her before, and not less after, she went 
to the nursery. Here he also met the woman whom he once found, 
a stranger, lying sick with a fever, of the typhoid species, and, 
taking her by the hand, bade the fever depart, and " straightway 
the fever left her ' ' from that hour, and she arose and walked, but 
not until her emaciated body was recruited by food. Met also, 
for a second or third time, that beautiful little, Frank, medium, 
through whom Red Jacket calls the squaws and braves to their 
places, and gives them specimens of his wit and wisdom. Pre- 
sented Mrs. Mettler with a lock of hair from the head of a sick 
lady in Ceresco, Wisconsin, and received a most accurate and crit- 
ical description of all her conditions and relations, some of which 
were pitiable in the extreme, and beyond remedy while law and 
religion continue to make slaves, victims, and martyrs, to cruel 



232 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

inharmonies in social life. Went to Poquonock ; found a church 
with a two-story pulpit, pens for pews ; and there preached the 
new gospel in the old house, and it did not burst ; and he left 
with the best wishes of some good souls and a promise to return, 
but left the time loose. So it is yet. 

Went back to Springfield and met a New England Thanks- 
giving-day, and. found a great contrast between the table of 
Mrs. Harrison, on that occasion, and the one he found at home 
sixteen years before, in the days of salt and potatoes, eat with 
tears for blessings. . In this city he found a wolf, with a sheep's 
coat on, trying to coax a lamb 'through the fence; and he picked 
up the willing lamb and took it to the station in Boston, and sent 
it by express to its paternal home, among the mountains, where it 
rested in safety till it went to sea. Found Boston and December, 
and that indomitable worker for spiritualism, Dr. H. F. Gardner, 
with his Fountain House for a spiritualist's home ; and there were 
truly spirits at the house, but not the kind which make drunk 
come, but those which make the raps and tips come ; and people 
often came there to find that kind of spirits, but not to find the evil 
spirits, which are usually bottled and headed, corked and decan- 
tered, but for whose freedom the Lone One ever plead, asking that 
the necks of the bottles might be wrung and twisted off, and the 
heads of the casks broken, and the spirits allowed to run freely 
away. The other kind always seemed to be free, and would not 
always come at bidding, especially of wise savans and professional 
dignitaries. More than one evening he was found sitting in Bar- 
nard's little spirit-room, where the drums did beat, the bells tinkle, 
the trumpets sound, tfie tambourines rattle, and the drumsticks 
move about the room, all in the dark ; but he soon satisfied him- 
self that an invisible power did perform many of the simple tricks, 
— invisible of course in the dark, and he was satisfied it would be, 
even in a lighted room, but it never was philosophically clear to 
him why the room for such feats must be dark. The spirits never 
gave a scientific reason, although they often attempted, and satis- 
fied those who were ignorant of science and her laws. But these 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 233 

and other experiments fully satisfied him that certain spirits 
required darkened rooms for particular performances. This seemed 
to have a connection with haunted houses, where the wonders 
usually occur in the night or dark — but why, is still an open 
question. Made the acquaintance of that bold defender of the 
truth, Theodore Parker, and loved to hear him send home the 
startling truths to the anxious minds that gathered in the Music 
Hall, each Sabbath morn. " Well," said the reverend, at the 
close of a sermon, " did I do your subject any injustice? " for he 
had been speaking of mediums and spiritualism. — " No, sir," said 
the Lone One, " only criticized it as I often do ; but you have only 
reached the door of our temple, — - would you not like to have it 
opened, and walk in, and view its beautiful decorations? " — " Cer- 
tainly ; I am always seeking for new truth. Come to my house and 
tell me what you have found." But the visit did not come off, for 
the two ends missed each other, and passed by the stopping-place. 
Heard the soft whisperings of angels through Hattie A. Adams, 
and the " Lily Wreath " of spirit-flowers fell from her hands on 
his brow in the beautiful visions more than once, as he heard the 
ever-smiling face of John S. relate how he penned and pranced 
the " Town and Country " for the market. But we have not 
time here to register all the good souls with whom he met and 
parted. 

December 20. — In Portland, Me. Meets A. J. Davis, at the 
reformers' home of Lydia Dennet, and in the lecture-hall; for now 
the seer, too, is itinerant. It always did his soul good to meet 
Jackson, for then he knew God or nature had one specimen of a 
natural and true man — a man without a mask, inside and out- 
side alike. Made arrangements for a course of lectures for him- 
self, on his return, to follow Mr. Davis, and then ploughed on 
through the snow to the end of the rail. Almost froze in the 
sleigh-coach before he reached Bangor, although the passengers 
had the advantage of the heat of a newly-married couple, on a 
wedding trip to the eastern " jiimping-off place." But they 
reached Bangor late in the eve, where he found warm friends and 
20* 



234 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

homes ; but what became of the wedding-party was never known 
to him, for they were to go on at four next morn, and at six ther- 
mometer was near thirty degrees below zero ; and whether it froze 
between them he never knew. He solicited a lock of their hair for 
their friends, but they would not send this token back to Vermont by 
him; for they had faith in God, and hoped he would preserve them, 
and let them return safe, and not frozen ; — perhaps he did. His 
old friend Melinda, of Troy, N. Y., was here, with a sister and 
brother-in-law, and they were a concert and made beautiful music 
at each lecture. The church was opened and ready, and a liberal 
public feeling gave him full . audiences, and an interesting time. 
The Christmas-tree was harvested at the home where he rested ; 
circles and happy visits used up the time, and closed the old year 
up ; and, on the 31st of December, it sank quietly to its eternal 
rest, unless a resurrection-trump shall awake it, of which there is 
no promise. But the Hutchinson boys were there singing, and 
they sang its requiem, and the Lone One preached its funeral 
sermon. Ealph W. Emerson, whom the. Lone One had never 
before met, said the comic and witty, acute and philosophical words 
for the old year, as it was about to die. The year thus closed, 
with a feast of fat things, in a deep snow-rich city, and happy 
homes, far down in the State of Maine, on the life and vision of 
the Cosmopolite. 

" The long dark night of the world is past ; 
The day of humanity dawns at last ; 
The veil is rent from the soul's calm eyes, 
And prophets, and heroes, and seers, arise ; 
Their words and deeds like the thunders go ; 
Can ye stifle their voices ? — They answer, 6 No ! ' 

" We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, not breaths ; 
In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
We should count time by heart-throbs : he most lives 
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best ; 
And he whose heart beats quickest lives the longest." 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 235 

Section III. 

1855. ITINERATING. INCIDENTS. FRIENDS INCREASE. 

ONE BY ONE. 

One by one the sands are flowing, 

One by one the moments fall ; 
Some are coming, some are going, — 

Do not strive to grasp them all ! 

One by one thy duties wait thee, — 

Let thy whole strength go to each ; 
Let no future dreams elate thee, 

Learn thou first what these can teach. 

One by one — bright gifts from Heaven — 

Joys are sent thee here below ; 
Take them readily when given, 

Ready, too, to let them go. 

One by one thy griefs shall meet thee, — 

Do not fear an armed band ; 
One will fade as others greet thee, 

Shadows passing through the land. 

Do not look at life's long sorrow ; 

See how long each moment's pain ; 
God will help thee for to-morrow, 

Every day begin again. 

Every hour that fleets so slowly 

Has its task to do or bear ; 
Luminous the crown and holy, 

If thou set each gem with care. 

Do not linger with regretting, 

Or for passing hours despond ; 
Nor, the daily toil forgetting, 

Look too eagerly beyond. 



236 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

Hours are golden links, God's token, 

Reaching Heaven, but one by one ; 
Take them, lest the chain be broken 

Ere the pilgrimage be done. 

The new year broke beautifully on the life of the Lone One in 
Bangor, and the day was spent visiting with the three Hutchinson 
brothers, and Mr. and Mrs. Shaw, with their sister, the Troy 
medium, writer, and singer, who had been so unceremoniously 
dismissed from teaching in Troy because the angels communicated 
to her beautiful messages of peace and love for those who needed 
such. The delightful and happy homes of General Hersey and 
Mr. McLaughlin both received and contributed to the holiday 
joys, and aided to wheel off the cold hours in pleasure and glad- 
ness. The day closed with a concert and crowd, and beautiful 
dreams took the Lone One late to other scenes. Next night he 
slept in Portland, at the home of N. Foster, where reformers find 
a welcome and the best of care ; but Mrs. F. had removed her 
" board and lodging " to a new home on the other side of the 
Styx, where she was expecting him, as soon as he completed his 
labor on this side. She was not so far away that they could not 
hear from her; for she often sent word, and assured her husband 
of her good health and happy life in the new home. 

January 5. — A letter for a western paper commenced some- 
what in this wise : " My date reminds me that this day completes 
forty-two years that I have breathed the atmosphere of this earth, 
and boarded with its inhabitants. I have been fanned by its 
zephyrs, and chilled by its boreas ; warmed by its sunshine in 
summer-time, and bitten by its frosts of winter-time, both in body 
and spirit, from the world of matter and the world of mind around 
me. Much of my life has been a sad experience, full of events 
and vicissitudes that may one day make up a narrative for the 
curious. My attempt at life on earth was begun in the winter, in 
every sense and meaning of the word. In mid-winter, by the 
calendar, in the geographical winter of New Hampshire. In the 
abject poverty winter of society ; in the winter of social scorn and 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 237 

contempt, despised by the ignorant and vulgar. In the solitary 
winter of loneliness, with no brother, no sister, no father, and but 
a momentary visit from a mother ; such was the winter of an 
ardent and sensitive soul. In the winter of intellect, too ; for by 
hard-earned coin I paid for the book-knowledge at school, and by 
toiling by day, and studying by night, for many years, I unfolded 
my intellect, and gradually melted away the snows of human 
prejudice. In a winter of religion, for even to the age of thirty 
no ray of hope for happiness, or even existence beyond this, to 
me, miserable life, enlivened one hour of toil and misery ; hope 
sank in utter darkness, and scarcely could the light of God be seen 
through the snow-drifts which circumstances and society had 
heaped upon me. Twenty years ago I sought a home in the then 
far West ; and there, after many years of toil and suffering, I have 
at last found the summer-time. of life, and the sunshine of happi- 
ness, and my soul is full to overflowing." 

The course of lectures were well attended in Portland, and a 
lively interest awakened in the city, which has never subsided ; 
nor will it, until the city is " leavened." Returned to Boston, 
and homed at the Fountain House a few weeks, and missionaried 
about the country. Found Joseph Dow and lady in Woburn, 
with souls in them, and heard of others in the place, where a few 
attentive minds listened to his voice. 

Jan. 14. — Lectured in Hartford, and had one of the most 
pleasant and happy visits with old friends there, and returned, 
passing Springfield. Came to Warren, and addressed a full house, 
and again in Ware met new friends and attentive listeners. 
Passed by and viewed the rocky home where Lucy Stone used to 
skip, and play, and work. But he did not call, for the bird had 
flown. Returned to Boston, and met Emma F. Jay, whose ac- 
quaintance he had before made at Troy, and who was now a re- 
markable medium. She, too, had in early life found a home in 
the same Southport village of Wisconsin, and sojourned also in 
the Battle Creek of Michigan, and schooled in the LaRoy semi- 
nary of New York. Orphaned out, and tossed about, slandered 



238 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

and scorned, for her mediumship, and defence of the truth. She 
had, by these means, attained, and deserved, a high place in the 
army of spiritualists. A well-deserved notoriety soon after took 
her over the ocean, with friends ; but the spiritual atmosphere 
there would not hold her up, and she leaned on the social and in- 
tellectual arm of society. Made a visit of her mission, and re- 
turned to triumph more, and better, at home, as a messenger of 
the angels, till she landed on the island of domestic life, over the 
sea of matrimony, and homed at the old " stamping-ground," in 
the city of Kenosha, — once Southport. 

Feeling lonely, one day, he stepped into a room where were a 
gentleman and his wife, both good mediums, and seated himself as 
a visitor, or friend. Soon the lady, with a sudden convulsed jerk 
of the body and arm, threw her work from her lap, and, in an en- 
tranced state, turned to him and said, " A beautiful white cloud 
hangs over you, with a richness of pure white too delightful for 
description. Slowly I see a small, delicate, and exquisitely 
moulded hand and arm project from the cloud ! In the fingers is 
07ie bright red pink ; — do you know its language ? " — " Yes," he 
replied. " The arm reaches it to you, and, placing it in your lips, 
recedes. At a distance the cloud slowly opens, and I behold the 
features and form of one of the most lovely beings my spirit-eye 
hath ever beheld, and I hear her say, * When thy wearying task 
is done, when thy earthly clouds are passed, when thy mission 
is performed, when thy wounded heart is healed, when thou 
layest thy body down, — then we will lead thee to our home, where 
thy soul shall mingle, one with mine, in pure, unclouded 
love.' Her smiling face and celestial form is again hid in the 
cloud, and it moves slowly away." The dark cloud was lifted off 
his feelings, and they were again buoyant and happy. Reader, 
who do you think did this? Was it a devil, or a bad woman? 
But some of you will ask who was the spirit. To him it was a 
vision of the future ; not personal, on the part of the angel, but 
only representative. He knew too much of such visions to seek 
for names, or persons ; for they are only given to represent condi- 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 239 

tions and times. The person represented in such visions may be 
in either world, known or unknown ; and we are not often supplied 
with correct information of the persons represented, for usually it 
is not best for us to know. 

Jan. 27. — Some excellent friends in Portsmouth, N. H., re- 
ceived a visit, and collected very large audiences, in the Temple, 
to listen to his lectures. The spirits were ringing door-bells, and 
making some other demonstrations in the town, that served to 
awaken an interest and inquiry. The social atmosphere was 
very pleasant at this station, and he lingered till his appointment 
at Kennebunk, Me., called him thither. Found friends and lis- 
teners numerous there, also, and filled the mission, and returned 
to meet his appointment at Natick, and lodge in the soul-refresh- 
ing home of his friend Hanchet, and shook once more the political 
hand of Senator Wilson, with whom he had been stationed on the 
platform at Pittsburg, in his day of political conventions. One 
of the most intelligent and appreciative audiences assembled to 
hear him in Natick, and long he remembered his pleasant visit, 
and the influences of the place. 

Feb. 7. — Drifted in, by snow, at Essex, where a preacher had in- 
duced him to come and lecture, where a few good souls were ready 
for the gospel which he preached. 

Feb. 11. — Attended to the sermon of Parker in morning, and 
spoke twice at the Melodeon to good audiences. A cloud hung 
over his soul about these days, for extraordinary efforts were made 
to destroy his influence by slander and falsehood, based on stories 
which were only valuable by transportation, but worth nothing at 
the places where they started. His loving nature and affectionate 
heart, which had been so crushed in early life, was now receiving 
its natural flow, and he was often found in conversation or cor- 
respondence with the best, and purest, and most intelligent ladies 
of his cirele of acquaintance ; and a letter or a visit from a lady 
unknown to the enemies, or jealous sensualists, was ample evi- 
dence, and testimony, that he was a "Free Lover." When this 
cloud passed away, it was the last that ever did, and probably the 
last that ever will, shade his soul, for he had drank deep of the 



240 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE 0' 

* * <e Pure and strengthening camomile, 

Whose crushed leaves ever show 
How the true and strong heart gathereth 

Fresh energy from woe." 

It was truly a long time before his sensitive heart could be 
reconciled to the falsehoods of enemies and pretended friends ; 
but at last he triumphed in that struggle, and felt the forgiving 
spirit of Jesus, who could as freely forgive Peter and Judas as 
he could those who crucified him. A point which Christians have 
seldom attained, but which the Harmonial Philosophy teaches, and 
A, J. Davis practises, as a disciple of nature. 

Feb. 13. — Dropped a lecture in Lexington, not as famous as 
the battle, but may have hit some object. A second pleasant visit 
at Portsmouth. Heard Sally Holley try to unite Bible with anti- 
slavery. Vain effort to make it all read that way, while it reads 
both in defence, and condemnation, of every evil. A second visit 
to Portland, with better success than in first. Used up a week, 
and made new friends, and the increasing influence and constant 
labor in this cause made its enemies more bitter and vindictive 
than ever. 

Returned to Boston to see February expire, and to part with a 
patient, whose system had received much benefit from magnetism, 
through his system. This patient is often referred to in the diary 
as Belle, and was a poor victim of disease, and medicine, with a 
fine and large brain, well balanced, and a nobleness of soul and 
character seldom equalled in one of only ordinary education. She 
had been totally blind for four years, from the age of sixteen to 
twenty, and during the time physicians had experimented on her 
nervous system, until they had nearly destroyed all its capacities 
for enjoyment; and when she ceased all medical remedies, she 
slowly and partially recovered her vision. The jealous friends 
and pious enemies both found good food for slander in his mag- 
netizing this poor sick girl. But their fires went out when she 
got married to a distinguished business man, and left the circle of 
gossip, but never the feeling of gratitude to him. 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE, 241 

March 2. — - Visit the home of John M. Spear and daughter, 
in Melrose. Sophronia was an angel while here, and at that time, 
and now is with them in a more affectionate and happier hv 
as she testifies to the Lone One, and many other friends, who 
knew and loved her while here, and as her husband knew then, 
and still testifies ; but the people abused her, as they do all of 
their best specimens of human-life purity. 

Sunday, March 4. — Turned off three lectures in Lawrence, to 
large and intelligent audiences. 

In Lawrence found a cousin in a happy home, with one of the 
best of husbands, and one little daughter. She was a daughter 
of Joseph, who had ever been the most sympathizing and kind of 
his relatives, and whose family had ever treated him as a relation. 
With this cousin he ever after sojourned when in the city ; and 
now for the first time since he left his native town for the West 
he met with a relative. She had a story to tell, a life-line to 
follow. One of the best and most affectionate of girls, she was 
early married by law, and tried to live with a man who was to 
her anything but what a husband should be, until her constitution 
was nearly ruined, and at last was forced to leave him, and be 
unlocked by a decree of court ; and, after some years of struggle 
and buffeting the world of scorn, she at length met her true mate, 
and unitedly and happily they wind their way along the maiv 
ried journey, happy in all but her poor health. Adding this to 
his cabinet of specimens of marriage unions, he journeyed along, 
wishing he had all the experiences to record, that the law-makers 
might see the picture, and be induced to so change the law that it 
would not be more honorable to die or live in misery, than to 
escape from such pollution and adultery as many live in, forced 
by law and public opinion united, to crush their victims. 

Next point of note was Concord, N. H., where the lectures did 
not call out many hearers ; but here he picked up a specimen for 
his cabinet of curiosities. In the old Chandler homestead he 
found John, with his unshaven face and head ; of course, a singu- 
lar man, and one of the odd sticks. Martha, with her pleasant 
21 



242 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

face and contented look, and the fine-looking children. From 
them he learned the story of their marriage, which God or nature 
had cemented many years before, when they were young. They 
religiously repudiated marriage, but after an early and long 
acquaintance they believed they were mates. She had been 
much at the old homestead ; and one morning at breakfast, with- 
out any previous notice to his parents, or others, they both 
announced their intention to live together as much like married 
people as they pleased, and be as near one in life and labor as 
God had made them adapted to each other. When the surprise 
was over, then the rage of gossip began, and lasted for years, but 
gradually it died, for they ever lived true to each other, happy 
in and with each other ; and as God married them, of course no 
man has ever put them asunder ; and no earthly marriages have 
been more pleasant through the trials of life. They wandered to 
the West once after an association, at a time when John repudi- 
ated money. They returned, through many hardships, to the old 
homestead, which has recorded the years for more than a century, 
in Concord. 

Some time after this date John furnished another firebrand 
for the market of gossip. Their eldest child had left her body, 
— a girl of about a dozen summers, — and, as the family were 
sick, John employed the sexton to take the body to the grave- 
yard and bury it, without a priest or funeral, or even followers to 
the grave. The enraged Christians were almost ready to dig it 
up and hang him, and bury both decently, as they called it. But 
John only laughed at their rage, and did as he had a mind to do. 

March 12, '55. — The team lands him in Pittsfield, twenty 
years, lacking a few days, since he left. The voters had been 
called to the town-hall to hear a speech from Mr. Clark, of Man- 
chester, an acquaintance of the Lone One. He was to follow in 
a speech to the Republican voters ; and next day was to be elec- 
tion-day in the state. Only one citizen knew the Lone One was 
present ; and as Mr. Clark was compelled to leave at the close of 
his speech, he was requested to announce a stranger to follow in a 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 243 

speech, but not to name him, for he was now nameless ; probably 
not twenty people in the town knew he was living, and only the 
one knew he was present. It was a surprised party, as he made 
his way to the stand through the anxious crowd, and, mounting 
the rostrum, deliberately releasing himself from his extra coat, he 
soon called to their minds the last election in which he took an 
active part with some of them, when many others now active 
among them were playing around their cradle-beds or mothers' 
laps. Then he told them of his travels in the West and the 
South, — in the border free states, and in the border slave states, 
— and explained the contrast, and many of his observations and 
experiences. All persons of all parties were chained by the 
thread of his discourse and the story, and looked sorry when 
he closed, which was compelled by the late. Then followed 
a scene such as we cannot describe. A hundred persons rushed 
to greet him, each eager to clasp his hand, and many to be 
recognized in person or in family ; but none, save two little boys, 
of the name or family with whom he had lived out his boyhood. 
The lawyer and the eldest brother had removed from the town ; 
the father and the one with whom he had served his time had 
removed over Jordan, and left only the two little boys at the old 
homestead. They were born after he left, of a second wife. 
After much entreaty, and many apologies to fractional relatives 
and others, he finally went home with the Drake family, several 
of whom, now men and women, were little children when he left, 
but in and of a family of dear friends much visited by him for 
several years, and near Brackett's homestead. Half an hour's 
visit to his old home was all he could spare, and many short calls 
among them — one on a cousin and her happy home. One whose 
mother was a sister of Simon, and who married into the name, 
and, dropping this one daughter on earth, went home to heaven, 
leaving the husband to marry again, but not to crowd the lovely 
daughter out of sole heirship. Therefore, she brought her hus- 
band to the fine old home on the hill, and there still lingered the 
almost octogenarian parent, with two wives in heaven, and none 



244 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

on earth. Sophronia was overjoyed to meet him, for she had 
loved him as a cousin in his youth, and to her he was still a rela- 
tive, and ever had been. Four days, and all the visits were closed, 
and the one lecture in the church on the Western States had 
awakened the interest, and sufficed to let them know he had out- 
grown the boyhood, and their scorn and contempt for his birth and 
youth. 

March 16. — Returned to Concord; 17th, to Boston ; 18th, 
lectured twice in Chelsea, and quartered at the excellent and 
happy home of Capt. Williams, and found the quiet and happy 
parents of Mrs. W. and Mrs. Alvin Adams (Mr. and Mrs. 
Bridge), on whose souls the sunshine of the next life was shining 
brightly, enabling them to see and feel the life to come while yet 
lingering here in feeble bodies. Met and visited old and new 
friends at many homes, in Boston and vicinity. Lectured almost 
constantly. 

March 23. — Stood on the Winnesimmet ferry-boat, with 
uncommonly large number of passengers, when a large ship, 
launched from the stocks, came directly toward it. So doubtful 
were the chances of " fore or aft " passage, that the engineer 
stopped the wheels, and in one minute all the frightened and 
screaming crowd would have been under the mighty ship's prow, 
and under water, but for a mighty yell of some person, given with 
power enough to induce the engineer to put on the motion at full 
force, by which the flat ferry, with its load of passengers, mostly 
ladies, was pushed forward, and the monster grazed the stern as 
she passed the frightened crowd. " Narrow escape ! " they cried, 
and some thanked God, and some the engineer, and some the man 
that yelled. The Lone One looked coolly on, calm, and prepared 
for either sphere of life and action. Half an hour after, he was 
on a train of cars that ran against a team just returning from a 
funeral, and narrowly escaped an upset and destruction of prop- 
erty, and preparation of material for more funerals ; but narrow 
escapes are frequent on the cars. 

March 26. — Farewell to Boston. Stop over in Springfield, 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 245 

and hold up at the Palace Home, in Hartford. Excellent circle, 
and visit with best of friends. 

March 29. — Met with the Associationists in New York city, 
and made speech for theory, and recounted unhappy experience. 
Went home with the old reformer, Tappan Townsend, of 
Brooklyn. 

March 30. — In eve at conference of spiritualists, but found 
more wrangling than harmony, and few harmonized spirits in 
attendance. Could not find out their object. 

Sunday, April 1. — Lectures in Stuyvesant Institute in day, 
and in Dodsworth's in eve, to crowded hall ; at the close of which 
many applications were made for him, but his time was limited, and 
he could not engage. Overheard a judge say that was the best 
lecture they had heard in the hall ; but the press said very little 
about it, of course, for he was the World's Child, not of distin- 
guished parentage, but born in its lower circle, and slowly wend- 
ing his way to its outer spiritual sphere. 

April 2. — A highly intellectual treat, in a visit with Ernestine 
L. Rose ; and then on the cars bound to Cleveland, with short 
stop at Cuba ; found Hattie watching by the side of her soon-to-be- 
released father. Cora, whose father had been called through the 
cholera-gate to the other life, was on her mission elsewhere, but 
her Lovisa-mother was aiding Hattie. Only themselves can tell 
how glad they all were to meet again one so nearly allied to them 
in the dispensation of the new gospel. 

April 6. — Once more in Cleveland, and meet the Mary F., whose 
soul was now freed from its legal earthly bondage, by her effort, 
and now she could say to Mr. L., marry now, if you wish, the girl 
you love, for the court has freed you from me by my request. 
No friend of hers could be more rejoiced at her freedom than the 
Lone One, except it might be the one with whom her existence 
soon after blended, and with which it still remains blended. Sun- 
day he lectured twice, and Mary once, in the Melodeon ; but, for 
want of proper notice, to small audiences. Hers was a noble 
effort, and a beautiful lecture, and she felt her freedom as her soul 
21* 



246 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

bounded with its outstretched wing once more in the world of 
mankind, — a woman, free, though despised by many of those in 
bondage. Her free heart went to its true mate soon after, and 
found its home where no law of man could make or mar the union. 

April 15. — One of the happiest and best visits of his life at 
Akron and Middlebury, with lectures, and his artist-friend and her 
mother and several others, all of whom endeavored to contribute 
to his happiness, and whose kindnesses he never will forget in this 
world or the world to come. Coasted and lectured along the way 
westward, at Elyria and other places. 

April 23. — Brought up at L. Martin's, in Adrian, Michigan, 
one of the neatest little homes that the spirits could find on earth. 
No pet but the cat soils the carpet, and even the talking is mostly 
done by the visitors ; but this was always one of the best homes 
for the Lone One, and where he ever found a hearty welcome, 
and efforts and notices for lectures, which to him were now almost 
his meat and drink. Next in Detroit to meet an esteemed friend, 
with the soul of an angel in earthly form, whose mate had been 
snatched from her arms by the cholera, leaving her to guide and 
train up the boys alone. This elegant and highly-refined lady was 
ever a fast friend of the Lone One, in sunshine and storm ; for she 
knew his life and labors were above the vile dregs of society, that 
ever slandered and abused him. She believed in eternal life, and 
that she should again meet her husband in a new home, and of course 
this heresy rendered her unpopular ; but she was free, and the 
angels administered unto her. 

April 29. — Three very good audiences in Detroit, in Fireman's 
Hall, listened to his voice. Some excellent friends at Jackson 
made his short visit highly pleasant; and at Albion the hall was 
full of listeners, for the cause had made much progress there 
through the labors of Mrs. C. Sprague, afterwards Mrs. Tuttle, 
one of the ablest and best of medium-speakers in the field " to 
this day." 

Sunday, May 6. — The hall at Battle Creek was well filled, to 
listen to the well-known voice of the Lone One ; and the Bedford 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 247 

school and the Cornell home received its accustomed visit. Waded 
through Chicago, but no call for news from the other life there. 
They were mostly engaged in speculating with corner-lots, and 
stocks, &c. In Milwaukie, the 9th, and met audiences in the hall 
at each appointed hour ; very good interest. Closed his course on 
Sunday, the 13th, and parted with Dr. Greves and many excellent 
friends; and on the 15th reached his Ceresco home and the bosom 
of an anxious family, who had watched each approach as the 
weekly letter reported it, after an absence of little over ten months. 
Eager friends came gathering round, and wondering enemies 
sneaked out of sight, ashamed and conscience-smitten for their 
abuse and slander. Rum and religion had doubled teams in Ripon 
and Ceresco, and sent a mob after some new settlers or visitors in 
the place, who, it was said, had lived, or were living, together as 
man and wife without permission of a priest ; and one deacon, of hard 
history and bad repute, entered a complaint against the new comers, 
although he had never been in a house when they were in it, nor 
ever spoken to them ; but his oath to what he knew nothing of, was 
sufficient, with the prejudice, to arrest and bind over the two 
strangers who had been guilty of living in the place for a few weeks, 
— married or unmarried, no one knew, save what they said them- 
selves, and they denied the right of a priest to marry them. They 
were strangers to the Lone One, and all others in Ceresco, and the 
man subsequently proved himself unworthy the martyrdom; but they 
found bail for appearance at county court, and that was the end 
of the matter, for the influence of the little Ripon pettifogger did 
not reach to the county seat, and the district attorney knew better 
than to tax the county with his ridiculous nonsense. In the midst 
of all this the Lone One had good audiences on Sunday, the 20th. 
Even many of the rowdies came to hear him, and listened quietly, 
and as usual found the pious enemies had lied about him, and taken 
advantage of his absence to spread the lies. 

During his last absence six families, four of them old citizens 
of irreproachable character, and two new settlers, united them- 
selves, as they called it, into what was called the Ceresco Union, 



248 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

and issued a circular, which was published in several papers, set- 
ting forth their unobjectionable views, and inviting friends who 
agreed with them in sentiment to come and join them, and settle 
in Ceresco. No noise, objection, or prejudice, was raised about or 
against the Union, until a Dr. Newbury, from New York, came 
there, and gave a course of lectures in which he defended the 
freedom of the sexes, and opposed all marriage and restraint of 
law on the rights of women, &c. ; the mob spirit arose, set on by 
religious bigotry, and an attempt to mob him called out the fami- 
lies who composed the Union, and they defended him until his 
lectures ended, and he left to return no more. But they had 
brought down the curse of the rabble and the busy pettifogger, 
who, about this time, got control of a little squib sheet that adver- 
tised the goods of Eipon for the country market, and in this he 
puffed himself, and let off his venom on the Ceresco Union, with 
great applause from the enemies of Ceresco. At a distance, the 
whole scheme was charged to the Lone One, and Newbury was 
said to have been sent there by him, although he never saw this 
Newbury, " to this day,' 5 nor heard of him except in Ceresco ; and, 
although he never belonged to the Union, nor heard of it till its 
circular was published, and neither condemned nor endorsed its 
sentiments. But he was ever ready to maintain the freedom of 
speech, and the right of every person to teach whatever sentiments 
he or she pleases, as those who do not wish to hear could cer- 
tainly stay away. More than five hundred newspapers in the 
nation copied slanderous imputations about the Lone One started by 
the little sheet at Bipon, and by a worse and more reckless, Courier, 
at Oshkosh, which procured its vile lies from the pettifogger, who 
was personally under obligations to the Lone One, from which ho 
released himself by such abuse ; but he had a reason, previously 
given in these pages. An acquaintance and personal friendship 
was ail the connection the Lone One ever had with this or any 
other union, except the old Phalanx, which died in '50, and ever 
after which, he intended to fight on his own hook, and be the expo- 
nent of his own views, as he is, boldly and openly. But his home 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 249 

was in Ceresco, and he was a spiritualist; and if" Free Love" or 
any other subject could be used to prejudice the people, it would 
be charged to him. 

May 25. — Started again, and lectured in Fond-du-lac in eve, 
and next day reached Sheboygan Falls, and Sunday, 27th, lectured 
in new church to good audience, and on 28th in court-house at 
Sheboygan. Tuesday, his eldest son arrived, and they took boat 
for Chicago, and the son went on to Battle Creek and to the Bedford 
school and Cornell home, where he found a welcome, and better 
friends than he ever found out of his own home. The father 
stopped in Chicago, and whistled off to Bockford to sleep at the 
happy home of his friend Dr. Budd. Dr. Haskell had the circles, 
and his paper, going forth to spread the truth, but was not satisfied 
to have the work go on so slowly. Three lectures were well at- 
tended on Sunday. In Dixon, June 6, one lecture; made a 
good impression. Next Peoria, the handsomest of handsome 
cities in Illinois, took down a course of lectures well got up by 
two of the Higgins brothers. By the 11th was again in Bock- 
ford, and on the 12th met once more the three sisters at Bockton. 
The mother had now escaped from her body of pain, and the home 
was broken up. 

June 13 and 14. — Lectured in Beloit, Wisconsin, but not to 
large audiences ; 15th, in Belvidere, and on Sunday, 17th, in 
Waukegan. A good spiritual atmosphere ever surrounded this 
place, for its best citizens were converted to harmonial religion. 
Via the cities to Beaverdam, where he met his old friends, once of 
Bockford, Mr. and Mrs. Archer, and had a pleasant visit and good 
audience in the evening, and on the 22d was again at his home in 
Ceresco. This short trip had been made that the wife might get 
ready to accompany him East on a visit to her paternal home, 
with the younger son. The elder son was now at the Spiritual- 
ists' Home in Bedford, Michigan ; the daughter had taken, and 
was teaching, a school in an adjoining town ; the house was partly 
rented, the goods were packed up, and preparations soon made to 
leave the slanders to a free circulation, and they had a glorious 



250 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

run after he and the family were gone. All was soon ready, and 
on the 28th of June the friends collected and parted with the 
three, and they started, not sure of a return, even if prospered, for 
he had long since resolved to change his home, or rather hers, for 
one more congenial to their views and feelings. 

Sunday r , July 1. — Lectured at Sheboygan Falls, and recruited 
for the journey ; her health was better than for years before, but 
still feeble. The Harmonial Philosophy had wrought in her great 
physical, spiritual, and mental changes, which had changed life 
from a burden to a pleasure, and now she too had to share the 
abuse and slanders of his enemies. No sooner were they out of 
town than lies, of the most absurd and ridiculous character, were 
reported about them ; and frequently, while on the journey, where 
he was known and she was not known, were remarks made about 
the woman he had travelling with him, and persons heard to say 
they did not believe it was his wife. By this journey, the only 
one in which he had been accompanied by a female, he was long 
reported as travelling with strange women all over the country. 
Never, until he began to talk and write about the abuse of the 
marriage contract, and advocate changes that would release only 
the sufferers, was there a word of slander against his moral or 
social character ; but since he had made that a theme, every time 
he was seen with a female he was suspected of illicit intentions. 
Both were now free and happy, and these slanders did not reach 
their souls, but usually fell, like scalding water, on those who 
reported them. Speedily they journeyed, by boat, to Chicago, 
and, after a short stop in that whirlpool of civilization, by rail 
to Battle Creek, where his many friends were soon her friends also, 
and, meeting the son at his new home with the Cornells, they soon 
learned of his attachment to the place and people. 

While here the Lone One bargained for an acre of land, and 
resolved to put up a small house soon as he could do so. Soon 
after this purchase, the proprietors surveyed the village plats of 
Harmonia, and his proved to be a corner-lot, opposite the school- 
house, and in the town of Battle Creek, with the road between 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 251 

it and the school-house, a town-line road dividing it from Bed- 
ford. The plat is on a beautiful plain of light, rich soil, and each 
lot has one acre or more. The Michigan Central Railroad passes 
one mile north of the school, and the Kalamazoo River beyond, 
but near, the track. Battle Creek station and village, one of the 
most active, enterprising, thriving, and liberal towns in the state, 
is five miles south-east of the school, and the mail, and other 
business of the school and settlers, is still done there ; for, 
although the place had been long settled, and was not new, yet 
it was, and is, only the home and the school of a few reformers. 
The soul-and-body devoted H. Cornell had, of course, been abused, 
like other reformers who attempt to teach without permission 
from, and submission to, the clergy. But he was not a man to 
faint, or fail, but was one of the few true souls with whom the 
Lone One felt united in a life-struggle for reform ; and he now 
resolved to be interested in the school and its progress. Although 
he had no dollars to invest, and no religion to endorse it to the 
pious, yet he had friends not a few, and a wide and extensive 
acquaintance with reformers, and as much hatred and enmity in 
the bosoms of the wicked and superstitious as almost any man in 
the nation ; and both of these were necessary and useful to him 
and the school. Leaving this new home, — for such it now 
became, — and the many friends in Battle Creek, they visited 
Jackson, and the elegant home of Mr. and Mrs. Isman, and that 
best of families and ladies, in the cottage of J. Gr. Wood; 
roamed through state-prison, full of pity for the convicts, which 
bore the wife's heart down into its depths of sorrow, for she was 
a woman of deep sympathy, and a soul that was ever touched by 
suffering in its tenderest chord. " I will never visit another such 
place," said she, as they left the gate and entered the carriage 
with the happy Mrs. Isman and her very intellectual mother. 
That kindest of friends, N. Stone, was in the depot at Detroit, 
waiting for the family when the cars drove in ; and soon the little 
boy, full of life, health, and animation, was coasting about the 
hotel-home of this excellent family, and the wife found such 



252 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

friends as she can never forget in Mrs. S. and daughters. " How 
much they seem like our folks ! " she said ? as they retired. 

Sunday, July 15.— The three lectures were well attended, 
and next day the cars were whistling down the Canada Railway 
with the father, mother, and boy, two of them the same that fed 
on salt and potatoes, and more recently on slander and false- 
hood ; and the father the same that had committed one great crime, 
for which he had suffered all his life, namely, that of being born 
of an unmarried mother ; and the same who had slept with the 
cows on the beds made warm by their bodies, had been sold into 
sixteen years' bondage because he was motherless and never had 
a father on earth. 

July 18. — Roam about Niagara Falls and Suspension Bridge, 
a happy little group, enjoying the rich scenery and magnificent 
mechanism as freely as if they were rich and popular, in fortune 
and fashion. The rainbow hoop, the Maid in the Mist, the stairs, 
the waterfall, and the Indians, have all been described till no 
further changes can be rung on them ; and we will pass along 
down Lake Ontario on a fine boat, and smooth water, and in the 
morning through the Thousand Islands, with their rocky peaks, 
skirted by a rich green shrubbery, to Ogdensburgh. There again 
take to the whistling horse, and be put " over the road." What 
a country, in contrast with the West, meets the eye on the North- 
ern road, till you near Champlain, when, of a sudden, you seem 
in the very heart of the smooth, rich farms of the West ; but 
the line is short, and, ere you are aware of your location, among 
the mountains of New York and New England, Rouse's Point 
is the cry, and Champlain smiles in your face — for she never 
frowns. 

July 19, 1855, h\ p. m. — Cars stop at Milton, Vt., and horse 
drinks, snorts, and starts. Three seats from the forward end 
of the first passenger-car sit four persons facing each other ; 
the Lone One and wife, and a Methodist man and wife from 
"Chelsea, Mass. Much they had talked of religion and spirit- 
ualism, and many other topics, in the long journey by boat and 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 253 

car. Their window was up, and they were enjoying the fresh air 
after a severe shower, and admiring the lake and mountain 
scenery, a little boy was watching the happy faces of his parents 
from the other side of the car, when a sudden and terrible explo- 
sion, a crash, and convulsed trembling commotion, with hideous 
yells, all burst upon them. " Don't stir ! " exclaimed the Lone 
One, putting out his hands to catch his wife, who was pitched 
forward on to him. Only an instant, and the car full of living 
beings was at rest and right side up ; but without was horror. 
The engine and tender were half buried in mud and water at the 
foot of the bank, the baggage-car had disengaged itself at the 
couplings, and the top gone down one side and wheels the other ; 
and the two passenger-cars, both well filled, occupied the bank, 
but not track, alone. Directly under the seats of the four was 
a car-wheel, and under the wheel the mangled body of Mr. Bush, 
a conductor of the Burlington train, which was awaiting him ten 
miles below. The engineer was under his machinery, deep, 
dead ; and the fireman lay mangled on the bank, in a condition 
from which death soon released him. The little boy and pious 
woman were frightened almost to a loss of reason. One look and 
word from the father brought the boy to a state of calmness ; but 
the woman was not as easily calmed. In vain the two spirit- 
ualists, both calm as if nothing had happened, tried to pacify 
her ; but the mangled bodies would almost convulse her with 
agony. " Why," said the Lone One, " have you such fear of 
going to heaven ? Christians ought never to fear death, as it is 
their only gate to heaven, and a sure escape from further risk 
of hell. You had better change your religion for ours ; then you 
will not fear death any more, for, with us, he is conquered." 

" Well, it is strange," she replied, " how you can be so calm 
and cheerful." 

Another train soon came to their relief, and, the baggage being 

collected, with the passengers, the scene of the boiler explosion 

was soon out of sight, and the three, well in body and mind, were 

sleeping in their seats as they wound around the mountains on the 

22 



254 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

crooked path of the Vermont Central Road, in a dark night, 
and brought up at White River Junction at three a. m., when they 
bedded down at the Junction House, and the frightened Chris- 
tians got more calm by morning. Next day, by cars to Clare- 
mont, and stage to Newport, they reached the pious and once 
happy home of her brother. The girls were glad ; all were glad 
to see the brother and uncle, whom they had never met before. 
They liked him much ; but, when he came to speak in the Univer- 
salis church, and with effect, then the priest was aroused, and 
religion in danger. Soon these relatives were supplied with the 
slanders of the clergy, one of whom, a man who said he had been 
to Ripon and preached there, going so far as to tell this brother 
— who, of course, believed it, because a priest told it — that a 
warrant was already in the hands of the sheriff of his county 
awaiting his return, and, no doubt, would soon lodge him in jail 
or prison ; when, in truth, no process, civil or criminal, had ever 
been issued against him, and never a complaint made against 
him, except by slanderers. A few months after, when he returned 
to Ceresco and wrote his wife from there, while she, still visiting 
her relatives in New Hampshire, asked the pious brother what 
he thought had become of the warrant and officer, etc., " 0," said 
he, " I suppose he has settled it." But this was as true as any 
of the stories circulated by his religious enemies about him, 
which answered their end here and in some other places, namely, to 
prevent his influence and sentiments reaching those pious ones who 
could be influenced by them. It was not so at the mountain-home 
where the family were reared. There was a happy home, and a 
welcome from the souls of all ever greeted them both. Their 
religion partook of nature and humanity ; and they loved God 
in man, and showed, by doing good to their fellow-beings, that 
they were relying on works, not words, for salvation. A few days 
he roamed over the rocks, feasting on wild berries and pure air, 
and the atmosphere of kindred, new to him ; then moved along 
his way, and, July 29, lectured three times in Lawrence, and 
found a hearty welcome among the many friends in that place, 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 255 

and at the happy home of his cousin. Next day, in Boston, many 
familiar faces greeted him : but short calls were the order now. 
Aug. 1, he landed in Portland, where several days were spent 
most pleasantly, one on an uninhabited island in Casco Bay with 
a picnic party — a romance. All strangers to him in the morning, 
and none by evening. 

Sunday, Aug. 5. — Three lectures in City Hall used up the 
day. Here he met his old friend from Bockford, 111., Dr. Has- 
kell, and they journeyed together up the road to Gorham, and to 
the top of the White Mountains ; the seven last and up-hill miles 
on foot to the Tip-Top House, where they dined on the 8th of 
August, and, in a beautiful day, stretched their vision in all 
directions, trying to see more, when every look was a feast. The 
clouds floated in beautiful richness around the summit of the 
great rock-heap, called Mt. Washington. When the lungs had 
feasted, and the eye was tired, he took leave of his friend, who 
was intending to return to the Glen House and Gorharn, and 
pranced nine miles on foot down the west path to the Notch House, 
where, late and weary, he arrived, and found the best of fare for 
the best of pay. Begistered for the stage at four next morn- 
ing, and when the porter came to call him it was raining, blow- 
ing, thundering, and lightning, as if the gods of wind and weather 
were mad with fury. " Call me to-morrow morning, and let the stage 
go," said the voice within. — " Ay, ay, sir ! " and the storm beat 
on undisturbed by the stage. When the morning came, he walked 
around the Glen, but he could not see the top. To him it was 
delightful to see the storm beat itself to pieces against the ever- 
lasting rocks and profile cliffs of that romantic spot. With 
evening came the sunshine ; the dancing rills came sparkling 
and tumbling down the cliffs in rattling joy and sportive frolics, 
that made him wish everybody could see them, and learn with him 
to worship Nature, and enjoy her heaven. 

August 10. — Left the Notch, and at night slept in Concord, at 
the quiet home of his spiritual brother Aldrich, and on Sunday, 
12th, lectured three times in the Universalist church of Manches- 



256 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

ter, to very large and highly-delighted audiences. But here, as 
everywhere, as soon as he began to exert an influence, falsehoods 
were immediately peddled to counteract it, successfully with some, 
although never injuring him, nor marring his happiness, only as he 
saw others deterred from examining the, to them and him, most 
important of all subjects. Here he met many friends, and had 
one of the best of visits; then whistled along, calling on friends 
in Boston, where they had more speakers than meetings, in hot 
weather. 17th, at Plymouth, sailing about the bay, on new ves- 
sel, with one hundred and fifty invited guests, mostly ladies. The 
captain and owner being a spiritualist, of course the Lone One 
and the ladies hacLan invitation to a ride, and it was delightful in 
the fine breeze. 18th, visited Plymouth Rock and Pilgrim Hall, 
and examined the relics of the colony and his ancestors, and the 
grave-yard on the hill-top, with its Puritanic epitaphs, and rock 
head-stones for the saints and the rich ; the graves of the poor he 
could not find, except the new or recently-made ones. 19th, 
Sunday, lectured twice in a hall to fine audiences, at this Old Col- 
ony home, where once the Puritans had all the religion and con- 
trol of the station; but intelligence had now almost crowded it 
under ground, with the dead bodies of those who once defended it 
with law and force. 

August 20. — Return to Boston, and met A. J. Davis and his 
happy mate at the Fountain House. " Ah, Mary," said he " thy 
hands are stayed up now, even to reach the home of angels." — 
" Yes, I am happy, but I feel as if I must not fold my arms to 
rest, but work for the great cause of emancipation, elevation, puri- 
fication, and development, for my sex and the race." — " Yes, and 
may God bless and speed you both in the holy mission of reform 
in an ungrateful and scornful world." — " Yes," says Jackson, 
" but the sun shines on those who reach the mountain-top both 
earlier and later than on those in the valley, and by that means 
we have begun our heaven here." — " Somehow," says the Lone 
One, " the sun of the spiritual harmonial home shines in thy soul 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 257 

all the time, lighting and warming it in its inner temple, where 
the nettle-shaft of slander cannot reach." 

August 21. — Resting in the Beautiful home of the author of 
the " Hen Fever," in Wyoming, where hangs the full-length por- 
trait-present of Queen Victoria, and many other ornaments, but, 
best of all, the happy faces of wife and daughter. The slanders, 
started so long before at Ripon, and based entirely on the stolen 
letter and its progeny, had now assumed a shape for newspapers, 
and were bandied, with his name, about the city papers of Boston 
and New York, as if they were items of news. Well, many peo- 
ple knew that his reputation must be impaired, or the cause of 
spiritualism would increase in every place he visited, and such 
places were not likely to be few. Even the New York Tribune 
soiled its columns with an article from a dirty sheet at Oskosh, 
Wisconsin, which could not possibly say worse things about him 
than it did about Greely and his candidates and measures, and 
with the editor of which they would have been ashamed to 
be seen in the street, and the columns of which would be no 
authority with the Tribune on any subject but against spiritualism. 
A note from the Lone One inquired of Greely the reason of 
this slander, and required a correction ; which was readily made, 
with the excuse that it was floating through the press unrefuted. 
So it ever would have been, in all papers opposed to reform ; but 
the Tribune^ the newspaper of so many reformers, ought to have, at 
least, the slightest evidence before it slandered a person whose whole 
life, and means, and energies, had been devoted to reforms ; but 
it, on being notified of its position, took back all it could, without 
defending spiritualism, against which one of its editors had a 
religious spite and spleen to vent. They ought to have known 
better than to be caught in this trap, when they were themselves 
connected in this same slander by a more conservative portion of 
the press. Other papers he did not notice, for he knew many of 
them were not read to find truth, and that few believed what they 
saw in such secular and sectarian sheets as circulated base false- 
hoods, both personal and general, about spiritualists. 
22^ 



258 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

August 25. — - His wife meets him at Manchester, and they 
visit the quiet home of Dr. Hanson, where Susan makes every 
good visitor happy, when she is there. Sunday, 26th, lectured three 
times in Granite Hall to good audiences, but not as large as in 
church. 28th, they visit Lowell, and meet A. J. and M. F. 
Davis, and the four have one of the little social circles, where 
harmony and happiness flows like a river, from celestial fountains. 
" Now," said the Lone One to his mate, " I have fulfilled one 
promise, to introduce you to the happiest man I ever saw, and one 
of the happiest couples." A. J. D. lectured in the eve, and thus 
for the first time she heard him speak before an audience. Next 
they visit his cousin in Lawrence, where she found another happy 
home and couple. 

September 1. — The harmonial four met again in Boston, at the 
Fountain House. Sunday, 2d, he returns to Lowell, and lectures 
three times to full hall. Next they visit Salem, and the widow 
Endicott's neat and happy home ; then down to Lynn, and into 
Dungeon Rock, where the man who has faith in spirits like " a 
grain of mustard-seed " is trying to remove a mountain of rock 
off the bodies and treasures of the dead pirates, which legends 
and spirits say are buried in the cave under the rock. His faith 
is better than his prospect. Climb the High Rock, and visit the 
Hutchinsons in their home, and she looks from the tower where he 
had often been, over the bay and islands and Nahant, &c. ; visited 
Nahant, and heard of the sea-serpent from brother Buffum. 9th, 
lecture in Lynn, to small audiences, in hot days. • Next they visit 
Chelsea, and Capt. Williams; and Boston, and Alvin Adams; 
and thus the mate found many of his temporary elegant and 
happy homes, and best of friends. Walked down Cornhill, and in 
office, and he introduced her to W. L. Garrison, and thus fulfilled 
another promise, to introduce her to the most Christ-like man in 
the nation. She acknowledged both, and enjoyed much these 
visits and acquaintances. They found also those full-blown souls, 
J. S. Adams and Hattie. She was soon tired of sights and sounds in 
Boston ; when they retired to the elegant home of his friend in 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 259 

Wyoming, where she could rest, while he met his appointments to 
lecture in Stoneham and other places. There, too, they found the 
excellent and beautiful family of Mr. Mendum, of the Boston In- 
vestigator, and she had some pleasure in recounting the many years 
this had been their family paper, and ever esteemed and respected. 

Sunday, September 16. — Lecture in Reading to good, but not 
large audiences. 17th, she returns to Newport, and he spent the 
week in Boston, Lawrence, and other places, and Sunday at Low- 
ell, — lectured three times. Found some of the Norris family, 
one of the nephews of Brackett, and Moses, a lawyer of some 
note in the city, and a Dr. Hook, with whom he schooled in old 
Gilmanton ; but how few were these old acquaintances in New 
England ! 25th, he reached Newport, and was again at the old 
homestead on the mountain. Visited some friends, and on Sun- 
day, 30th, lectured again in the church, and Miss A. W. Sprague, 
trance-medium, and an excellent speaker, spoke in evening ; had 
good meetings. 

October 8. — He bade adieu to the rocks, and homes, and wife, 
and boy, in Newport, and leaned westward, toward the son and 
daughter. But stopped to lecture in Claremont one eve ; then .to 
Woodstock, and met the two Bandalls, both of whom were now 
doctors, — once husband and wife by law, now free by decree. She 
of Philadelphia, and he at the old homestead, settled, divided the 
property, and divorced ; but did not quarrel about it. 

Sunday, October 7. — Lectured in church at South Woodstock, 
to very intelligent audience. Next day rode in stage with very 
intelligent lady, Mrs. Hutchens, a teacher of penmanship, to Bar- 
nard, where he met some good friends. Soon passed on to Bethel 
station, and backed down to Lebanon, New Hampshire, where he 
had appointments to lecture, and where he found one of his best, 
pleasantest and happiest homes, at the fine residence of A. Pushe 
and E. J. Durand, and their wives, all of one family, and one 
heart ; and the happy face of Minnie, the lovely little daughter of 
Mr. and Mrs. Durand, ever after welcomed him, as one of her 
friends, to their home full of music. He sang : 



260 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

" No roving foot shall crush thee here, 
No busy hand provoke a tear." 

From the beautiful village of Lebanon, and his first but not 
last visit, he moved to Montpelier, a small, but very aristocratic 
capital of Vermont, where, on Sunday, Oct. 14, his three audi- 
ences were mostly composed of members of the legislature, which 
gave him three of the most intelligent audiences of the season, to 
which many words were freely spoken and a fine impression made. 
Here, for the first time, he met the medium-poetess and teacher, Mrs. 
Frances 0. Hyzer, and her sister Carrie, the seer of beautiful vis- 
ions. The little huddle of neat cottages, crowded closely on the 
scanty pattern for a village and capital, fairly stuck into the hill- 
side, and the high hills ready on either side to come down and 
bury up the place, steeples, aristocracy, and all, when the scrip- 
tures shall be fulfilled by the levelling operation, make Montpeliar 
a romantic and interesting place. Burlington, Vergennes, and 
Middlebury, each gave or received a call ; and East Middlebury 
took several lectures, while he visited his old friends at the home of 
L. C. Hyde. The college was firm as a granite rock, and had 
about as much life and progress as that geological specimen of 
crystallization. It ought, and, for the good of the race, it might 
as well, be put away in the cabinet of curiosities, as a fossil of 
theology, crystallized by science. 19th, had an excellent audi- 
ence in Yergennes, and much interest; and Sunday, 21st, gave three 
lectures in Burlington to intelligent and respectable audiences. 
But the college faculty stood aloof in great dignity, despising the 
new truths ; and Bishop Hopkins, driven on to the romantic point 
of land-in-the-lake, quaked and shuddered with horror at the near 
approach of the Devil to so many mediums ; and John Gr. Saxe 
said funny words in poetry about modern spirits and mediums, 
but affected great reverence for similar persons and events of 
Bible times. Poor soul ! he will sing more truthfully when the 
shell breaks, and he, hatched out, can sing and fly at the same 
time. 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 261 

The grove-church, in the beautiful and romantic Burlington of 
Champlain, was already leaning toward spiritualism, and the old 
fogies were running with props and rests to stay its unstable form, 
and prevent it from going over ; but in vain — it had started never 
to stop, and the spirits still are watching and aiding it in the 
change. Middlebury took two lectures, and a few of the wild 
students called to hear about the Devil's doings, or see them, and 
soon found the Devil was in their theology and the professors, not 
in this lecturer. Eutland, 24th, he met his old friend from Bar- 
nard, with his daughter, a sister of Belle, bound for Iowa, to teach 
and find a new home with old friends. Parted with her father with 
tears, and he returned to his home, and soon after removed to his 
new home over the valley of death, while she was far away in 
Iowa. In the care of the Lone One, she took her first ride in the 
cars from Rutland, Vt., to Burlington, Iowa, via Troy, N. Y., to 
the Falls and Wire Bridge, where her wild and happy Green Moun- 
tain heart bounded with joy and admiration of nature's magnificent 
scenery, and the rivalry of art in her bridge-contrast. Satisfied 
with gazing, they mixed in the crowd at the depot, and were soon 
passing Canada towns, and over the ferry at Windsor, and at his 
home with friend Stone in Detroit, where they rested over the 
Holy Sabbath for him to preach, and hear S. J. Finney, who was 
then in the city, doing a great work in probing theology. 

Monday, 29. — They whistled along, and when Battle Creek 
sounded from the platform he stepped off, and left the lonely girl 
among strangers, far from home, ticketed from Vermont to Iowa. 
" Write me how you get through." — " Certainly ; " and the letter 
came, saying she wept at the thought of being alone among strang- 
ers so far from home. A kind face saw her weep, and came to 
inquire the cause, and, on learning it, replied, " Why, we are 
going almost to Burlington, and came from New England also ; 
my son will see to thy trunks, and thee will have no trouble with 
them ; " and thus grief brought relief and good friends, as it often 
does, even in the cars. Next morning she was in the stage, and 
at noon, at Kossuth, landed at the door of her friends, where a 



262 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

hearty welcome and a ready school greeted and employed the Ver- 
mont girl. The pious guardians of public morals at Ripon and 
Ceresco probably never heard of this journey and company, or it 
would have furnished the best load of fuel they ever collected for 
their fires, except the stolen letter; yet he never saw the girl 
except once at her home and on this journey, but she and all the 
family are eternally his friends, as are all true and pure spirits, 
who know him as he is, a defender everywhere of honesty, purity, 
poverty, and virtue. The glad face of the son soon met him at 
the school, and assured him of content and satisfaction with the 
new home ; and they renewed arrangements for a little cottage in 
the old garden-acre of what was once a part of David Brown's 
farm, now of Harmonia, and the home of reformers. The daugh- 
ter had closed her school with entire satisfaction, and returned to 
their Ceresco home, where she was mistress of her part of the 
house, and guardian of the effects of the family, but quite lone- 
some, and not happy in a place where her ears were constantly 
greeted with slander and gossip about the beings to whom her soul 
was devoted, and bound in stronger ties of filial affection than ever 
existed in the hearts of bigots or the slanderers ; for never was 
there a stronger attachment existed between a father and daughter 
than between these. At this time, and ever after, he left the 
standing offer to his enemies, that he would cease preaching spirit- 
ualism whenever they would produce one family of five persons, 
like his own, in father, mother, and three children, three or more 
of whom belonged to an evangelical church, in which the whole 
family were as happy, harmonious, and as much attached to each 
other, as his were ; and, as this was the only way they could rea- 
sonably expect to silence him, some thought they ought to try, 
but those who knew the condition and relation of his family knew 
it would be a vain effort, for such religion was itself a barrier to 
the happiness they had attained. At Jackson and Albion he had 
a visit with his excellent friend from Detroit, whose soul was in 
the sunlight of Divine truth ; his lectures were well attended, espe- 
cially at Albion, where Mrs. Tuttle had done so much work for 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 263 

the angels. At the Michigan Ceresco he met some old friends, 
and especially one true and tried one of long standing, a citizen 
of the Wisconsin Ceresco, in A. D. Wright, and also his father's 
family. 

Nov. 9. — Fitted out his son for teaching during winter, and 
left him to seek a school in Indiana, and moved on his mission to 
Union City, thence to Coldwater, and met Grace Greenwood, and 
her mother Clark/ and others; then to Adrian, where, Nov. 18th, 
he gave three lectures, and found his old homes and tried friends, 
Martins and Chandlers, with ever-open doors, and ready efforts to 
collect audiences. All his receipts were divided between the 
mother, and son, and daughter, according to their needs ; and he 
moved steadily on, with the same economy that he had exhibited 
through life. 

Nov. 20. — In Port Huron he began a course of lectures, sent 
for and sustained by a devoted soul in Dr. Noble ; and, on the 28th, 
returned to Detroit, made a short and in effectual effort the second 
time at Pontiac, but it was dark yet in that place. Finney was cul- 
tivating Detroit, and he moved on to Ypsilanti, and thence to Ann 
Arbor. In each found a few good friends, some false ones, and 
many enemies, and became more satisfied than ever that selfish 
persons could not become true spiritualists, at least in soul ; found 
a noble soul in his old infidel friend, H. De Garmo, and others in 
E. Sampson and J. Volland, etc. 

Dec. 16, Sunday. — Three lectures were well attended in Ann 
Arbor ; many students of the university were in attendance, be- 
traying a liberality not to be found at many colleges. Incidents 
which occurred in visits and circles might be more interesting than 
these notices, but this was the public labor of the Lone One, and 
is given more to show the contrast with his early life and condi- 
tion than for its interest to the reader. 

Sunday, 23. — Lecture three times in Adrian ; well received 
by many and increasing friends. Next stay was in Perrysburgh, 
Ohio, a beautiful town on the Maumee, above the Toledo of sin 
and sickness, money and rum, business and confusion. At Perrys- 



264 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

burgh he found one of the best of homes at Hon. A. Smith's, 
and there, while giving a course of lectures, the year died at the 
close of Dec. 31st, leaving him in this home not the orphaned and 
friendless boy, but the popular and successful lecturer ; not the 
victim slain by slander and falsehood, but the soul triumphant 
over misfortune and persecution, by energy, and a clear conscience, 
and unvarying toil. Now he knew that 

" Love is to the human heart 
What sunshine is to flowers ; 
And friendship is the fairest thing 
In this cold world of ours." 



And 



; When thy struggling soul hath conquered, 
When the path lies fair and clear, 
When thou art prepared for heaven, 
Thou wilt find that heaven is here." 



Section IV. 

1856. — COSMOPOLITE. ITINERATING. 

TO THE UNSATISFIED. 

Why thus longing, why forever sighing 
For the far-off, unattained, and dim, 

While the beautiful, all around thee lying, 
Offers up its low perpetual hymn ? 

Wouldst thou listen to its gentle teaching, 
All thy restless yearnings it would still : 

Leaf, and flower, and laden bee, are preaching, 
Thine own sphere, though humble, first to fill 

Poor indeed thou must be, if around thee 
Thou no ray of light and joy canst throw ; 

If no silken cord of love hath bound thee 
To some little world, through weal and woe ; 

If no dear eye thy fond love can brighten, 
No fond voices answer to thine own ; 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 265 

If no brother's sorrow thou canst lighten 
By daily sympathy and gentle tone. 

Not by deeds that win the world's applauses — 
Not by works that give thee world renown — 

Not by martyrdom, or vaunted crosses. 

Canst thou win and wear the immortal crown. 

Daily struggling, though unloved and lonely, 

Every day a rich reward will give ; 
Thou wilt find by hearty striving only, 

And truly loving, thou canst truly live. 

Jan. 1, 1856. — The Lone One in Ohio, lecturing; the wife 
and boy in Newport, N. H., visiting. The eldest son in Indiana, 
teaching ; the daughter in Ceresco, Wis., in school, at their home, 
boarding with Dr. Fletcher, then occupying the house of the Lone 
One, but who has since moved to the kingdom of heaven, where 
he has not yet begun to keep house, because his wife has not 
crossed over yet. Thus one of the best-united families, each 
reading letters every week from all the others, began the year far 
apart ; but we shall call the roll before the year is out, at the 
new home. New Year's morning in Perrysburgh ; evening in Ely- 
ria, where a course of lectures were given to intelligent hearers. 

Jan. 8. — Cleveland, and met Cora and Hattie Scott, from Buf- 
falo ; Cora had now become one of the finest and best trance-me- 
diums of the nation, and astonished even believers, often, with her 
angelic ministrations. Met the Koons, not from the tree-tops, but 
from Athens, and saw the mediumship which brought forth such 
wonders at the celebrated " Koons' rooms ; " met his devoted 
friend, L. E. Barnard, who published for him two thousand copies 
of a pamphlet, containing three lectures, which were soon sold, 
and a demand for more sent forth ; but it could not be answered, 
for it was not stereotyped. Met H. F. M. B., still struggling in 
bondage, and waiting for freedom impatiently, which she soon after 
found, with nothing else but the greater scorn of the deeper stained. 

Sunday, 13. — Lecture in church in Ravenna; next, Akron, 
and the excellent friends on the hill had a visit ; large audiences 
23 



.266 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

attended the call in both villages ; next in Cleveland, — small 
audiences in the evenings; and on Sunday, 27th, in Litchfield, — ■ 
a full house three times listened to his version of the gospel. 
Glad faces always meet him in that town with a welcome. Con- 
stant calls and lectures, nearly every evening, now occupied his 
time on the Western Reserve, where the new philosophy was and 
is as prevalent and well understood as in any part of the nation. 
The people of that region will ever bear testimony to his success 
and ability, for there he is well known both as a man and 
speaker. 

At Wellington, February 24th, an impulse was given to the 
cause that has not been lost, nor is it likely to be ; and, on 
the 25th, he gave the closing lecture of a season course, for a 
society in Mansfield, which had mostly Christian officers. It 
was a bitter pill for them, but delightful to the audience, many 
of whom joined in a call for him to come soon after and give a 
course ; but other engagements prevented then and ever since, 
but may not always. In Cleveland, March 4th, message from 
a spirit which escaped by apoplexy from the beautiful form, a 
young lady, whose body he watched while the spirit was formed 
and met its parent over the corpse ; a stranger to him till the 
scene occurred, but not after. 

February 5. — Met with William Denton and others in conven- 
tion, at Dayton, and here found some of the best and truest friends 
he ever found. Grave a course of lectures, and found a course of 
friends to himself and the angels. We shall not name them here, 
but he will not soon cease to name them. This city, already one 
of the strongholds, became one of his most important stations, and 
soon the home of William Denton, one of the ablest and most log- 
ical and lucid public defenders of the Harmonial Philosophy. 
Next visit was at Harveysburg, Warren Co., Ohio. Here he met 
the poor old man, who, when young, learned to preach, and fol- 
lowed it until he found the doctrine was not true ; and they fed 
him and his family for his labor ; and when his honesty compelled 
him to cease preaching, they turned him off to starve. But he 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 267 

was able to keep souls and bodies together, in his family, by un- 
wearying toil for scanty pay. At his (Alfred Carders') home he 
found more love and more poverty than in any home he visited 
in the West. A lovely daughter, of twenty-two years, was wasting 
and almost gone with consumption, and to her he bent his steps and 
words every day ; cheered, comforted, consoled, and loved her as if 
she were his own daughter; magnetized her both in body and 
spirit, and, when he went away, sent a comforter to her from the 
spirit-friends that visited him from the other sphere, who told her 
to be of good cheer, and she should soon be with them in heaven. 
And she was soon with them, and often came to him to thank and 
bless him for the cheering words in her last days of earth, and to 
urge him to console and comfort her dear parents. Martha's 
name often came to him from stranger lips, and often does she 
visit him when alone, and awaken him from sleep to whisper 
peace, and joy, and love, from her happy home, where the love she 
cherished and cultivated here, where she had little else, has made 
her rich indeed, while many are poor about her who had much 
else, and little or no love, while here. The happy and excellent 
home of Valentine Nicholson cannot be forgotten either by this or 
other visitors who have found its pleasant atmosphere and breathed 
it. 

March 15. — The journal says, Lecture in the dark pit; but it 
must be a mistake ; although no doubt he will, if the orthodox 
enemies succeed in sending him there. It was in Waynesville 
he lectured, and that is not very near the pit, although they have 
been using brimstone in their pulpits many years, and it is dark 
as Egypt theologically and metaphysically, and will ever be so 
while it depends on brimstone light from pulpits. Gave a course of 
lectures in Marion, in a church, to large audiences, and planted the 
cause permanently there. Next course was given in a Methodist 
church in Geneva, Ohio, to good audiences of intelligent hearers. 
Found excellent homes and best of friends in Jefferson, at the 
homes of Hon. B. F.Wade and Joshua R. Gidclings, whose liberality 
and intelligence had led them early to investigate this philosophy 



268 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

and embrace it. At Andover, Ohio, a full course of lectures, in a 
church, met the demand, and supplied it well. Here the priests 
came to hear and talk, but they soon found they had the hot end 
of the stick, and quickly let it go and set their devil on, while 
they ran off shouting " Free-Love," because that was the best 
subject to arouse the mob-guardians of public morals. But there 
is not enough liquor used in Ashtabula Co., Ohio, to enable 
the haters of reform to get up a mob. The most quiet and or- 
derly audiences ever attend lectures in this county ; for it has a 
most intelligent and liberal population, equalled by very few 
counties in the nation. Visited several old stations, and lectured 
successfully everywhere. The demand ever increased for his ser- 
vices. Made new points continually, and among the important 
and permanent ones was Milan, one of the most beautiful villages 
in the state, and with a very intelligent population, and hence well 
fitted for the new philosophy. Here he found several families of 
the best friends he met in the state, and ever after loved to visit 
the place. Honest, earnest, devoted, and unswerving in the cause, 
were some of the friends here, and hence the work went steadily 
on. 

Sunday, May 4. — Lectured in church at Clyde, and stationed 
with an excellent brother, the Universalist preacher (Mr. Brown). 
Found him a true man, and a real philanthropist in deed, rather 
than in word. Made a point at Fremont, with a firm and true 
friend in Judge Justice. 

May 8. — Landed at his Adrian home, at the foot of the hill, 
where a neat house, and open door, and cordial greeting, were ever 
ready. Here he met his son, whose schools had closed, and with 
him visited the university at Ann Arbor ; and on the 12th they 
reached their new home, and laid out the plans and work of build- 
ing the house, etc. Hardened his hands to labor, and rested the 
brain for a time, but lectured Sundays, and occasionally even- 
ings, Visited Allegan and Otsego, and gave lectures in each. 

June 6. — Deliver address at commencement. Had a fine day, 
and excellent time and exercises, and many friends from a distance 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 269 

in attendance ; among them his excellent and much-esteemed me- 
dium-friend from Detroit, whose soul dwelt still in the sunshine 
of the spheres. 

On the 7th he was in Chicago, at the home of his Higgins 
brother ; and Sunday, the 8th, lectured twice in Harmony Hall ; 
and on the 10th reached his Ceresco home, and anxious and loving 
daughter, whose overjoyed heart bounded with unspeakable joy. 
As she sprang to embrace him when he alighted from the stage, 
the driver held up to let the passengers see the expression, then 
remarked to them, 

"That 's the Free-Love home ! They are free lovers ! " 
A laugh on the passing winds swept by. But he took no notice 
of the remark ; for he had learned Sir Walter Scott's rule of 
conversation, which many others ought to learn. Thus : 

" Conversation is but carving : 
Give to each guest just enough ; 
Let him neither starve nor stuff ; 
Give him always of the prime, 
And but a little at a time." 

The family to whom he had leased his house had moved out of 
it, and out of the state ; and his agent had rented a part of the 
tenement to two widowed sisters, a few weeks before his return. 
This furnished ample material for the Christians and loafers to 
make up the report, and circulate it, that he had taken his wife 
to her friends and abandoned her, and returned to live with these 
two widows, because they too were spiritualists, and of his ac- 
quaintances. The story took well with the Christian endorsement, 
but soon died, like all the others, none of which had a better found- 
ation; but it lasted a few weeks, with a modification that charged 
him with giving them the rent, and staying with them nights while 
there ; which, although his daughter was there all the time, was 
negatived by the facts that they paid the rent in full to the agent, 
and he did not stay in the house a single night, nor more than 
one evening till ten o'clock, during his stay in the place, which 
23* 



270 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

was shortened to the least time necessary to pack up and dispose 
of his goods and business, for a move. But it was of no con- 
sequence about the facts. Like the wolf and lamb, in the fable, 
when the wolf accused the lamb of contaminating the water which 
the wolf was about to drink, " Ah ! " said the lamb, " but it runs 
from you to me!" — "No matter ; your ancestors were guilty, 
and you must pay the penalty by death." So of him ; no matter 
whether true or not, he is a spiritualist, and must be slandered. 
How could he prove he had not taken his wife to her friends 
and left her, and now come to sell his goods and move away? 
Of course he had broken up housekeeping, and his family was 
destroyed, showing one more of the terrible effects of spiritualism. 
But on Sunday, June 15, many of his old friends collected to 
hear him lecture, and grieved at his moving away from the valley. 
One more incident at this time furnished also material for abuse 
and falsehood, most of which, in this case, came from the side of 
those who chanced to be " Free Lovers ; " for he received as heavy 
shots from that side as from the other. A fine, intelligent girl of 
fourteen, a schoolmate of his daughter, whose father was in the 
spirit-world, and mother a cripple, on charity, was struggling day 
and night to keep her place in school, by taking washing, or any 
honorable work. A temporary citizen, who came to sojourn with a 
fine-looking and intelligent lady-companion, both strangers to the 
Lone One, had been coaxing and teasing this girl to leave her school 
and go with him, as an " affinity," to the new home in prospect in 
Kansas. She had not consented, but her destitute situation, and 
want of sympathy and love, had some influence in his favor, and 
she communicated the facts to her friend, the daughter of the 
Lone One, who implored her father to try to save and aid her ; 
which he at once did successfully, bringing from her the expres- 
sion, in tears, " You are the first man that ever talked to me like 
a father since mine died ! " and this she often after remarked to 
others. She broke the magnetic chord of the stranger, who was 
very angry at the one who caused it, impugning his motives, and 
charging him with the same object himself had in view. This 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 271 

made a good story, and ran wide and well, and all the better 
because it came from an enemy of marriage. But he saved the 
girl, and had and still has her blessings, and those of her spirit- 
father and earthly mother; and, what was more to him, the 
deeper devotion of his daughter, who ever esteemed and loved the 
girl as a sister. He directed her to go to her friends and stay till 
he could find means and a place for her in his family and the 
school, where she could complete her education ; and, although he 
did not see her again for more than a year, yet, by correspondence 
and the little aid he could afford her, she kept steadily the course 
he advised, ever feeling towards him the affection of a child. * 
This was one of the basest acts of his life in the eyes of his ene- 
mies, and one that afforded him much joy and satisfaction, and 
brought him the approbation of angels ; as did many others that 
brought curses and slander on earth. 

On the 19th he and his daughter bade adieu to the valley, and 
its scenes, and citizens, and with a load of movable effects reached 
the cars at Waupen, and via Iron Ridge soon reached Milwaukie. 
Thence by boat to Chicago, where the goods were sent forward to 
the reach of the son at Harmonia, while the father and daughter 
stayed in Chicago, for him to give a course of lectures to small 
but intelligent audiences. Here the daughter also found a home, 
and the best of friends, with the Judson and Mary Higgins. 

Jane 30.— -The daughter and father reached the new home, 
and met the happy son. She was pleased, and many who met her 
loved her, as her friends do everywhere ; for she had much of the 
ardent, enthusiastic, and affectionate spirit of her father, and was 
ever said to be like him. She ever was his pet, fond and playful 
as a child with him, even to womanhood. She was soon in the 
new garden, harvesting the ripe fruit, happy and highly pleased 
with the prospect of a new home, where she hoped the slanders 
of the Ripon loafers would not reach her ears ; for she was still 
sensitive, although she saw that they had no effect on her father, 
and that he was the happiest man whom she ever saw. 

* She is now in his family, with his daughter. 



272 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

•it 

Once more the Lone One took up the laboring oar, and doubled 
teams with his son, to urge on the work on the new house (a small 
cottage, sufficient to answer until he could sell the Wisconsin 
home). Early and late he toiled, and hardened to labor, until 
July 11th, when again, with the daughter, he journeyed onward 
to Adrian. Of all the good friends who urged him to leave the 
daughter with them, while he went East for the mother, he selected 
the one at the neat little home at the foot of the hill, in Adrian, 
where the demand for children was greater than the supply, — a 
reverse of the usual condition in marriage, — and where the age 
had long since put an end to all expectation of little ones. Here 
he left her with a real aunt and uncle, whose kindness never will 
be forgotten by father or daughter, while memory allows such acts 
to last. 

Sunday, July 13. — Lectured in Adrian to good audiences, and 
on Monday returned to his son and the new home, where he toiled 
on till July 23d. Thence over the way to Burlington, Vt., where 
he met the old friends, and on Sunday, the 27th, lectured in that 
fine town to a small audience. Met the warmest and best recep- 
tion he ever met in the place, and on the 29th he reached his wife 
and boy, at the mountain home in Newport, happy as happy could 
be, at the expected meeting. The relatives glad and happy to see 
him, all except the brother, whose religious zeal was bordering on 
frenzy, and had almost destroyed his naturally kind heart and 
good humor. 

Sunday, Aug. 3. — Lectured in the chapel in the village, where 
more pride and ignorance than knowledge and wisdom prevented 
many from attending. But the few did hear, and understand, and 
the good seed was sown. The ball set in motion, the car moved 
on. 

Sunday, Aug. 10. — Three lectures in Unitarian church in 
Athol, Mass., to large, intelligent, and attentive audiences, and 
left with many blessings, and requests to return soon as possible. 
Boston, Chelsea, Mt. Auburn, &c, had his time and attention for a 
few days, with excellent friends and best of fare, till the 14th, 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 273 

when a grove was his canopy, a picnic party his audience, from 
Lowell and Lawrence — happy day, soon lost from all but memory. 

Sunday, Aug. 17. — A large hall in Lawrence was well filled 
three times, to listen to his words on the life to come after this. 
Lowell was next the resting-place, at the home of J. F. Evans, 
where we left him when we finished this narrative, in September, 
1857. 

On Sunday, 24th, three audiences collected, the last in Hun- 
tington Hall, where more then eighteen hundred people assembled 
to listen to the voice of the Lone One, the same poor, despised 
orphan of the mountains. But this was not the largest, for he 
had several times addressed over two thousand people, and felt 
appreciated by his audiences. Made many new friends at Lowell, 
at this visit, and then left them for Manchester, where he mingled 
with the great political crowd for a day ; then moved to Concord, 
to meet his wife and boy, and go on to Lebanon, to the happy 
home before referred to, and to meet there several evening ap- 
pointments. 

Aug. 29, 30, 31. — Quartered with the preacher at South 
Koyalton, Vt., where they attended, and he took active part in the 
state convention of spiritualists and mediums ; and to them, and 
many others, it was the happiest meeting of their life. Fifteen 
hundred people with every chord of their beings beating in har- 
mony and happiness is not a scene often met with in this turbu- 
lent world ; but it could be seen on Sunday at this convention. 
It was a tearful parting to some, but not consequently unhappy. 
They went to their homes better, and happier, for this glorious 
time of spiritual feasting. Many speakers and mediums were in 
attendance, and none more happy, and gladly received, than the 
Lone One. 0, what a contrast in his life, and what still greater 
contrast between the feelings of these appreciating friends and the 
slandering enemies of him ! The angels were ever with him, and 
approving his life and actions, and most those acts which the enemies 
most vilified. Next they spent a week in a visit at the beautiful 
Eden home of his friend in Essex, while he lectured in Williston, 



274 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

Essex, and Burlington ; and she rested, for the long level of track 
and water, over which they made rapid speed, and pleasant trip, 
to Detroit, to meet again that best of friends, the Landlord-spirit- 
ualist. 

Sept. 11. — The three were in Battle Creek, all safe; and soon 
the fourth, the eldest son, was with his mother and brother — a joy- 
ous group, with the daughter still out, but near, and soon to come 
into the renewed family circle in the new home. The house was 
not yet in readiness, and again his hands were in the work, press- 
ing it to completion, aiding the son and workmen. All covered 
with rags and mortar, one day, while plastering his house (for this 
he did himself), he was called by the professor to go over to his 
room, and meet a stranger who had called to see him. Without 
a change he walked to the room, and met a professor of a medical 
college, who had heard him lecture, and admired him, and called 
to see him. It was a fine joke, and enjoyed by both then, and at 
a subsequent meeting, when he was again on duty. 

" Now," said the professor, "I see why you are the favorite 
with the masses. You do not despise toil, and cannot be ashamed 
of any man, however low his place or calling." — " That is so," 
he replied, " and I must tell you how I sometimes talk to people. 
I called on a friend in the East not long ago, who was a hard- 
working man, with near a dozen children, and large farm well 
stocked. His first wife had been worn out by hard work and 
raising babies, — mostly by the latter, — and I asked him what he 
lived /or." — " You tell," said he. — "Well," said I, " if you 
make me tell, I must judge by appearances ; and I should say to 
work, to eat, to sleep, to raise children, to get rich, then die and 
rot and be forgotten, except by the children, half of whom will 
curse you for bringing them into existence (for they will lay it to 
you, and not to God), with diseased bodies, to drag out a miserable 
existence here, and then die also, and be forgotten, except by per- 
haps other poor diseased children." — " Well, what 's the remedy? " 
said he. — " Why, stop raising children, when you have more than 
enough already, and teach them, and yourselves, what to eat, and 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 275 

live on half the expense, by throwing out of the catalogue tobacco, 
tea, coffee, pork, pepper, and most other condiments and meats, 
and live temperate, sober, and godly lives, and not work half as 
hard, and feel twice as well."— "That is it," said the professor. 
"I wish you would talk thus to all who need such lessons." 
- — "But they will not hear it ; for either lust and sensualism, or 
religion, are in the way, and few can give up the foods and drinks 
that keep up the fires of lust and passion, and such do not know 
the joy of pure lives." — " True, true ; but what a work we have 
to do ! " — " Yes, but you see I am a mason, but not a free one, 
to-day, and now my worship is work." — "Yes, and I will not 
detain you longer ; so good-day, and success." 

Crowding forward the house by day ; lecturing in evenings to 
students, and others, mainly on diet and regimen, etc. 

October 4, 5. — Attends the yearly meeting of Friends of 
Human Progress at Battle Creek. Much pleased; took active 
part and much interest ; spiritualism a ruling element in the 
meeting, and H. C. Wright a prominent actor; much pleased 
with him — liked him more and more as he became better ac- 
quainted with him and his motives. He took very little part in 
the great national campaign excitement now agitating the people, 
yet felt an interest in the issue, but did not expect the results to be 
such as the opposing parties contended for ; for well he knew that, 
other causes being much deeper than political excitement, were 
already working out results and changes for the future of the 
nation ; and well he knew that measures were proceeding in the 
spirit-world to effect a complete disintegration of parties and soci- 
eties in this, both political and religious, to result in a complete 
individualization and sovereignty, preparatory to a higher order 
of life and harmony on earth, in connection with the spirit-spheres. 

October 14. — Beached home with the daughter, and the happy 
family were all together at the real Harmonia home of Mr. Cor- 
nell, where they were ever cared for as his own family, until the 
new house was ready to receive them. Each Sabbath he met an 
appointment at some town, and during the week toiled early and 



276 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

late on his *»ouse, till October 27, when it was dedicated as the 
cottage home, and warmed by the happy faces of the young friends, 
and soon after became one of the happiest homes in the nation , 
for it was and is the home of true spiritualists, to which each 
reader of this narrative is cordially invited to " come and see." 

November 4. — - The great national struggle came to a crisis, 
and broke. He dropped his vote into the crowd, where it fell still 
as a snow-flake, and counted one, and then pursued his labor in a 
snow-storm, with the son, collecting and setting apple-trees pre- 
sented to him by an excellent friend, which he found in H. Willis. 

November 7. — Lodged in Chicago, and Sunday, 9th, lectured 
three times in the commercial whirlpool, to small audiences — no 
excitement. At Elgin, Dagget's home and a good church were open 
to him, and he used them. Found hearts and hands ready and 
willing to aid the onward march of the car of progress in that 
beautiful and thriving town on the Fox River. 

November 16. — Met H. C. Wright at Rockford, and had a 
pleasant and happy visit ; but Henry did the talking, according 
to appointment. 

November 23. — Closed a course of lectures in Mendota, to 
good audiences, and warm friends of him and the cause. Found 
it an excellent point for the new gospel, and a poor one for the 
old. Backed up to Waukegan next, and had a fine visit and 
audiences. Spent the snow-storm days in Milwaukie, and met 
Emma F. Jay, with her last name almost changed. Also met that 
executive pioneer, Joel Tiffany, the sunny face of Ex-Grov. Tall- 
madge, and, happiest of all, Dr. Greves, and many old friends of 
his, who were also, of course, friends of the angels. Lectured but 
once, and returned to Waukegan, and met his old and true friend 
Dr. Haskell ; then to Chicago, and in circle at the magnificent 
home of Dan Richmond, the man who was able and willing to 
make spiritualism popular and respectable in that city, if wealth 
and business talent could give it that position. Via Michigan 
city to La Fayette, la., and at the new home of those bold de- 
fenders of reform, Dr. Stockham, and Alice B. Stockham, the 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 277 

wife, and also the M. D., whose ambition and enterprise had in- 
duced her to study through the Medical College at Cincinnati, 
closely after Carrie. She and her husband had taken up the 
loose ends of reform in this town, and were already making prog- 
ress, and removing obstacles from the way of lecturers. He also 
found the quiet home of John 0. Wattles a few miles distant, and 
the fine old homestead of Dr. Welsh at Weau station, and soon 
found good and true hearts were not scarce in the land of the 
Hoosiers. Next at Dr. Shaw's, in Indianapolis ; but this was the 
capital of the fine state, and of course fashion, and pride, and 
ignorance, used bigotry for knowledge, to rule by, and turned up 
its noses at reforms or reformers, — especially reforms in reli- 
gion, — for they had Abraham for their father, and Moses for 
their law-giver, and wanted no better. All else was heresy, and 
of course he could not make a point of importance here yet. One 
lecture and a few hearers was all. 

December 21. — Closed course of lectures and fine long visit 
at Dayton, Ohio, where old and new friends were, as ever, glad to 
meet him. Next at Richmond, where the straight-line Quakers 
were already committeeing out their members from society for 
believing in a spirit-world, and that it was at hand, as Jesus said 
it was in his day on earth. 

Sunday, 28. — Two lectures to large audiences, in Cincinnati, 
closed the visit and business, to back up to Richmond, and lecture 
once more to the Quaker stock of that neat little city of plain 
style and excellent people ; then to the capital again, and by extra 
efforts of Dr. Shaw and the spirits be saved from a typhoid fever, 
with which he was threatened. But they succeeded in two days 
in turning it off, and barely saved him while the old year died 
and was gathered to its fathers, leaving the Lone One, on the 
night of December 31st, in the chamber of Dr. Shaw, alive, but 
restless with pain and fever. Then it bade its friend, the Lone 
One, farewell. " Farewell ! " came the answer. 

" Soon my task will be completed, 
Soon your footsteps I shall follow 

24 



278 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

To the islands of the blessed, 
To the kingdom of Ponemah, 
To the land of the hereafter ! " 



BY THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BARD. 

There have been noble men, whose highest, holiest thoughts 
Were born in solitude. 

Alone in some vast wilderness they wandered forth, 
And there communed with nature, until 
Its inspiration roused the slumbering soul, 
And from its depths brought forth some glorious vision, 
Fairer than earth's creation, which in a higher world 
Shall yet be realized. For what the soul creates 
To the soul's realm belongs, and never can be more 
Than dimly shadowed forth on earth, where 
Skilful hands are ever ready to embody in external things 
Its high imaginings. And such are they 
For whom the earth hath no companionship. 
They mingle with the world, but are not of it. With hearts 
All formed for sympathy and filled with highest love, 
They stand alone. Alone ! because inflexible in truth and virtue. 
Alone ! because the inward voice can never yield 
Its sense of right to the great world's applause. 
Alone ! because the clamorous multitude will never grant 
The meed of praise to virtues not their own. 
And yet not all alone. For ever to the heart thus throned 
In solitude kind spirits minister, outpouring high 
And glorious thoughts, and kindling sweet emotions in the soul, 
Until it revels in the light of heaven, and slakes its thirst 
In its undying founts, whose crystal waters back reflect the light of truth 
and wisdom. 

Section V. 

1857. FRACTIONAL YEAR, AND RETURN OF WANDERER TO THE 

HAPPY HOME. A VOICE FROM HOME. 

" Thou art not here ! 't is spoken still 
Within the forest shade ; 
'T is murmured by the babbling rill, 
} T is whispered through the glade ; 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 279 

At even's calm, when twilight broods, 

And silence fills the air, 
The gloomy shadows of the woods 

Tell me thou art not here ! 

" And ever as I trace the way 

By woodland or by stream, — 
The haunts of many a happy day, 

Of many a happy dream, — 
As, lingering by the rustic seat, 

Or antique bridge so near, 
My heart doth quicker, wilder beat, 

I feel thou art not here ! 

" Yet wood, and brake, and running stream, 

Are green, and fair, and bright ; 
The sun smiles forth a welcome beam, 

And glad scenes meet my sight. 
The birds, the winds, commingling song, 

Steal on my anxious ear ; 
But even music's charm hath gone — 

Alas ! thou art not here ! ' ' 

Echo from the south : 

" Alas ! alas ! doth hope deceive us? 

Shall friendship, love — shall all those ties 
That bind a moment, and then leave us, 

Be found again where nothing dies ? 
0, if no other boon were given, 

To keep our hearts from wrong and stain, 
Who would not try to win a heaven, 

Where all we love shall live again ! " 

Jan. 1, 1857. — The sick year died, and the sick man recovered, 
and closed the visit at the capital with the kind family, and whistled 
out to Knightstown and lectured twice on Sunday ; then to that 
handsomest town in Indiana, Terre Haute, where the fine home of 
T. A. Madison received him cordially, and the church door opened 
for him, and the people came in good numbers to listen to the 



280 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

gospel of the Lone One, surrounded by angels, and cheered on by 
a "great cloud of witnesses, unseen, though near." 

January 9. — Crossed the river and entered St. Louis ; coasted 
about the city ; called on many friends, and among them one family 
of long and lasting friendship, with whom he had boarded at the 
capital of Wisconsin several winters. Spent some pleasant hours 
with these, N. and M., both of whom were among his most devoted 
friends. Lectured on Sunday to large audiences, and several 
evenings to less numbers. Closed the course, and gave one on 
temperance on Sunday, the 18th, and, on the 20th, recrossed the 
river through crowded ice, and in freezing cold, and whistled 
along the path where cold is no obstruction, to Cairo, and at 
night bedded in a state-room on the steamboat Illinois, bound for 
Memphis. One hundred and fifty passengers, or more, nearly as 
many cattle below, and heaps of flour, made up the loading of the 
noble boat ; and she started and paddled slowly her way through 
the floating ice till within thirty or forty miles of Memphis, when 
the ice had the track, and would not switch off for her to pass; 
there she laid up till the passage to Memphis, usually of twenty- 
four hours, was lengthened to thirteen days. Once only the heart 
of the Lone One quaked for a moment. It was night, — near 
morn, — dark as the darkest ; the passengers and crew were in 
the world of sleep, all save the watch and the Lone One ; he was 
on the guard of the boat, early risen, to observe and listen to the 
breaking and crashing of the ice, which was giving way to the rain 
and current. The boat was out in the stream, fastened only by 
ice. Nearer and nearer the crashing and breaking appeared. No 
object could be seen beyond the lights, which were dim and nearly 
tapered into morning. The boat started, and with terrific crash- 
ing, and cracking, and creaking, she moved rapidly down the 
current. The officers were soon out, but nothing could be done 
for her but to let her drift with the ice and current, in total 
darkness. Every moment she seemed going to pieces to him who 
was not accustomed to the battles with ice and stream. But short 
was the time. She was soon fast, hard aground, with bow high 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 281 

up on heaps of ice at the shore, and the torch-lights soon showed 
them they could step on shore from the boat. Few of the 
passengers knew of the peril till all was over. But the orphan, 
who had not intended to bed his body in the drifts of the Missis- 
sippi, was on the alert, not in terror, but calmly watching pass- 
ing events in which he felt deeply interested. They had plenty 
of time to get her off before the ice opened in the river below to let 
her through. On this and other boats he found greater varieties of 
people than he had ever before met. The Southern planter was 
there, generous, open, frank, free, intelligent. The Yankee, from 
away down East ; the Western banker and trader, full of brag and 
tricks. The gambler, open and generous, and ready to fight or to 
treat you. The cattle-trader, cool, sober, calculating on his profits 
and losses. The boat's officers, gentlemanly and pleasant to passen- 
gers of all kinds, but terrible and savage to the hands under pay, 
swearing oaths that would start all but the ice. Ladies of as great 
a variety ; wives, sisters, daughters, mothers, and even the concert- 
singers, the Riley Family, in glee and song, were there, full of 
music, with a comic addition from New Hampshire in the genius 
of Connor. " Is your name ?" said a voice from the corn- 
crib below, one day, as he was wandering among the machinery of 
the boat. — "It is." — "I thought I knew you; father ano^ I 
boarded with you up in the woods at the old saw-mill, in South- 
port, and do you remember me ? " — "Yes, and your father, too; 
but what are you doing here ? " — " Feeding these cattle. I get 
fifty dollars and my fare to feed them down, and fare back, — have 
a farm in Iowa, and this is the way I am improving it. Come down 
and tell me your history, and let us talk over old times." So they 
did lead out some of their histories. When the days had numbered 
the baker's dozen, the ice softened, and the Illinois broke her path 
through, followed by four other anxious and waiting boats, and 
hailed from below by the officers and passengers of sixteen boats all 
waiting to get up river. Some with guns, and some with shouts, 
expressed their joy ; but the Illinois passed quietly on to Memphis, 
and soon further down even to the crescent city ; but the Lone 
24* 



282 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

One went on shore at Memphis, and soon found new friends and 
a hearty welcome as a lecturer. Homed with the celebrated Dr. 
Gilbert, of cancer-cure notoriety, where wealth and kindness both 
met the Lone One. Gave a short course of lectures; was well 
paid. 

February 9. — Took passage for New Orleans on S. B. Moses, 
McLelland, with pleasant officers and passengers from Ohio 
River, mostly from Indiana ; moved majestically down the mighty 
river, along the banks of which he viewed the splendid palaces and 
rows of slave shanties. The magnificence of the feudal castles of 
the middle ages, with the hovels of worse than serfdom in contrast. 
The towns and cities much like those of the North, leaving the 
great contrast between North and South mainly in the rural 
districts. It was an interesting sight and subject, and made its 
picture on the memory of the Lone One indelibly, from which it 
may some day be taken off on paper, but not here. 

February 13. — The boat up to the wharf, and the passengers 
were soon in the omnibus-city of New Orleans, where friends, 
not a few, were ready to greet, and expecting, him. A score 
of letters awaited him at the post-office, and magnificent homes 
were opened for his stay. Sunny as a summer-time were the 
days and faces around him ; fine audiences assembled in a neat 
hall to hear his words, and pressing invitations urged him from 
place to place, but all in temperate, moral, and consistent company, 
and exhibitions. No theatre or gaming-house was visited by him 
during his stay ; but all the interesting places of business and art 
had a passing notice. Found several old friends in the city, and 
one who had shared with him in the Phalanx struggles, then a 
young man, now a citizen with wife and babies, living happily and 
temperately in New Orleans. The city was full of life, and busi- 
ness, and strangers, and the gardens rich with flowers, as the par- 
lors, and sometimes the streets, were with silks and doeskins, 
beavers and bonnets. Near a dozen lectures ; more homes, and 
still more visits ; much pleasant conversation ; many friends, and 
pressing entreaties to return, and ample pay for the journey, were 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 283 

all realized ; and on the second of March he ticketed over the back 
track to Memphis, loaded with bouquets of elegant flowers, took the 
steamboat Virginia, to breast the current northward; and sailed 
with fine weather, but had one terrible squall, with rain and hail like 
shot from a loaded gun, from which they escaped damage and danger 
by tieing up to a tree, on the lee bank, just in time to escape a 
capsizing or a complete destruction. No other important event 
occurred on the upward course. The Lone One watched the gam- 
blers till he was tolerably well acquainted with their " poker " game, 
and saw how the sober and shrewd ones caught the green and 
dissipated ones ; but he had never bet, and never would his prin- 
ciples allow him to take part in games for money. An old black 
man, nearly blind, was one day put on the boat to change places ; 
with solemn and sorry countenance he sat on a stool near a stove-pipe 
on the guard of the boat. Early in the morning the Lone One ob- 
served his sorry face, and thought of his own early life. When no 
one was in sight he passed him, and placed a half-dollar in his 
hand without a word, when the sorry face, stammering, accosted 
him : " Massa, — massa, — don't you want — buy — somebody ? " 
— "I am a poor man/' was the only reply, as he passed, and sup- 
pressed the tear by turning to other scenes. He never read Uncle 
Tom's Cabin, and probably never will. He made, on the boat, the 
acquaintance of a cotton-planter of Tennessee, whose generous 
heart, and beautiful and intelligent daughter, urged him to visit 
their home at Nashville. His cotton-farm was on the river below 
Memphis, where he said he worked about three hundred negroes, 
and where they earned him, on an average, three hundred and fifty 
dollars each, per year ; but he said he was ever careful to have a 
kind overseer, to have them well fed and clad, and all their 
wants cared for, and they seemed as happy as the cotton-spinners 
of New England, but not so intelligent. Still, he thought Ten- 
nessee as a state might have her interests advanced b} T abandoning 
slavery. So many think in Kentucky, and Virginia, and Missouri, 
but few in Louisiana or Mississippi, &c. 

Lectured on the steamboat President ; chatted with the preachers, 



284 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

&c. ; and passed Cairo, and reached the floating-ice, and at length 
St. Louis, on the 12th. Soon he was again with old friends. 

Sunday, 15. — The hall was well filled, and his discourse well 
received as ever. He was ever appreciated in St. Louis. Took 
the snaky path of the iron horse, and stopped over at Alton, 
Terre Haute, La Fayette, and Richmond. Lecturing three times 
in the court-house at La Fayette, March 22d, and evenings in the 
other places, and three times in Cincinnati, on Sunday, 29th ; then 
rested over one week at Dayton, Ohio. Met William Denton, and 
many other true friends and true reformers, and closed his lectures 
on the 5th of April, and soon was at another excellent home in 
Milan, where another week was used up in the best of company, 
with lectures to fine and attentive audiences. Next in Cleveland, 
with two lectures on Sunday, April 19th, to large audiences; then 
at Grafton, Liverpool, and on Sunday, 26th, in Wellington, where he 
met large audiences. Everywhere the cause seemed to be on the 
increase, and fast gaining with, and in, the best of minds and 
families. During his winter sojourn in Ohio, in 1856, he delivered 
one hundred and eighteen lectures in one hundred and thirty-two 
consecutive days ; but in this last visit he had travelled much more, 
and lectured less frequently, losing much time on the river, and 
South, where people are not so much in a hurry for religion, and 
where they never take the kingdom of heaven by storm, if 
they do anything else. Closed his visit in Ohio with April, and 
on May-day reached Adrian, and found the ever-welcoming hearts 
of friends ready to meet him. 

May 3. — Lectured in Adrian, and stopping on the way at 
Raisin, to magnetize a sick patient for two days, on the 6th 
reached his cottage home, where the glad hearts gathered around 
him to listen to his words of love and wisdom, for he had both to 
distribute. 

Here we shall tie up this line, although he only remained a few 
weeks, and left again for the East, on a tour of lecturing, and, for 
aught we know, is wandering still, turning a corner at home two 
or three times a year. " If you were my husband," said a 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 285 

woman, " I would get a divorce, if you would not stay at home 
with me." — "Perhaps not, madam. If I am as bad as my 
enemies say I am, it must be a great blessing to my wife to have 
me always absent from home." — " Well, then, I would certainly 
have a divorce." — "That would be right, madam; but it is 
lucky that I am not your husband : you are saved that trouble." 

" Where is he now ? " said a voice, the first of June, '57. — At 
the quiet, happy, and beautiful home of E. Bulon, at Raisin, 
Michigan, writing in a book. " Where is he now ? " said a 
voice on the Fourth of July. — " In Buffalo, amusing himself with 
the folly of those who are showing off the monkey-tricks of a 
military parade." — " Where next will he rest ? " said an inquirer, 
deep down in July. — "At the Garden-of-Eden home, in Essex, 
Vt." — "Then he will see A.J. Davis and Mary." So he 
did, at Burlington. Do not think he was idle all this time ; for 
he is never idle, as his enemies well know. 

Aug. 20. — " Where is he now ? " said a pleasant voice at the 
West. — In the little bed-room at the old homestead of his wife, 
where she spent so many happy hours in her days of girlhood, 
writing in a book. " Let him go ; he is a strange man." — " But 
why don't he stay at home like other folks, and work for a liv- 
ing? " — Let him answer; I cannot. But you may write for him 
what the angel did : 

" Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase !) 
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, 
And saw within the moonlight in his room, 
Making it rich, and like the lily in bloom, 
An angel writing in a book of gold ; 
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, 
And to the presence in the room he said, 

8 What writest thou ? ' The vision raised his head, 
And, with a look made of all sweet accord, 
Answered, ' The names of those who love the Lord.' 

* And is mine one ? ' said Abou. s Nay, not so,' 
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low, 



286 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

But cheerily still, and said, c I pray thee, then, 

Write me as one that loves his fellow-men.' 

The angel wrote and vanished. The next night 

He came again, with a great waking light, 

And showed the names whom love of God had blest, 

When, lo ! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest ! " 

Life's journey now is well begun, 
And will not close with setting sun, 
But through the future swiftly run. 



Section VI. 

SUPPLEMENTAL AND CONCLUSIVE. 

IF I WERE A VOICE. 

If I were a voice, a persuasive voice, 

That could travel the wide world through, 

I would fly on the beams of the morning light, 

And speak to men with a gentle might, 
And tell them to be true. 

I would fly, I would fly over land and sea, 

Wherever a human heart might be, 

Telling a tale or singing a song 

In praise of the right, in blame of the wrong. 

If I were a voice, a consoling voice, 

I 'd fly on the wings of air ; 
The homes of sorrow and guilt I 'd seek, 
And calm and truthful words I 'd speak, 

To save them from despair. 
I would fly, I would fly o'er the crowded town, 
And drop like the happy sunlight down 
Into the hearts of suffering men, 
And teach them to look up again. 

If I were a voice, a convincing voice, 

I 'd travel with the wind ; 
And wherever I saw a nation torn 
By warfare, jealousy, spite, or scorn, 

Or hatred of their kind, 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 287 

I would fly, I would fly on the thunder-crash, 
And into their blinded bosoms flash ; 
Then, with their evil thoughts subdued, 
I 'd teach them Christian Brotherhood. 

If I were a voice, an immortal voice, 

I would fly the earth around, 
And wherever man to idols bowed 
I 'd publish in notes both long and loud 

The Gospel's joyful sound. 
I would fly, I would fly on the wings of day, 
Proclaiming peace on my world-wide way, 
Bidding the saddened earth rejoice — 
If I were a voice — an immortal voice ! 



THE WORLD WOULD BE THE BETTER FOR IT. 

If men cared less for wealth and fame, 
And less for battle-fields and glory ; 
If writ in human hearts a name 

Seemed better than in song and story ; 
If men, instead of nursing pride, 

Would learn to hate it, and abhor it — 
If more relied 
On Love to guide, 
The world would be the better for it. 

If men dealt less in stocks and lands, 

And more in bonds and deeds fraternal ; 
If Love's work had more willing hands 

To link this world to the supernal ; 
If men stored up Love's oil and wine, 
And on bruised human hearts would pour it 
If " yours " and " mine " 
Would once combine, 
The w^rld would be the better for it. 

If more would act the play of Life, 

And fewer spoil it in rehearsal ; 
If Bigotry would sheath its knife 

Till Good became more universal ; 



288 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

If Custom, gray with ages grown, 
Had fewer blind men to adore it — 
If talent shone 
In Truth alone, 
The world would be the better for it. 

If men were wise in little things, 

Affecting less in all their dealings ; 
If hearts had fewer rusted strings 
To isolate their kindly feelings ; 
If men, when Wrong beats down the Right, 
Would strike together and restore it — 
If Right made Might 
In every fight, 
The world would be the better for it. 

We never did inquire into the causes or circumstances which 
gave rise to the birth of the Lone One, nor did we accept any 
dream-interpretation of its mysterious origin. There is little 
doubt that, like most unwelcome births, both in and out of legal 
wedlock, it had its origin in the condition of body produced by 
the use of tobacco, liquors, coffee, tea, and animal food ; for it has 
been fully established by physiology that, without these, men and 
women cannot long be improperly addicted to that passional indulg- 
ence which leads to such unpleasant, and often painful, results ; 
and these are also ascertained to be the causes, together with out- 
door exercise, of the wide difference in the passional and lustful 
condition of males and females, giving a great preponderance to 
the former. Beginning this line at the obscure end, we have seen 
the appropriateness of the lines of J. Gr. Saxe : 

" Of all the notable things on earth, 
The queerest one is the pride of birth, 

Among our ; fierce Democracy ! ' 
A bridge across a hundred years, 
Without a prop to save it from sneers, 
Not even a couple of rotten Peers. 
A thing for laughter, fleers, and jeers, 

Is American aristocracy. 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 289 

" Depend upon it, my snobbish friend, 
Your family thread you can't ascend, 
Without good reason to apprehend 
You may find it waxed at the further end 

By some plebeian vocation ! 
Or, worse than that, your boasted line 
May end in a loop of stronger twine 

That plagued some worthy relation ! 

4 e Because you flourish in worldly affairs, 
Don't be haughty and put on airs, 

With insolent pride of station ! 
Don't be proud, and turn up your nose 
At poorer people with plainer clothes, 
But learn, for the sake of your mind's repose, 
That wealth 's a bauble that comes and goes, 
And that proud flesh, wherever it grows, 
Is subject to irritation." 

And, approaching the other end, we have found the Harmonized 
and happy soul and family in the true spiritualist ; and we have 
found that spiritualism, or the Harmonial Philosophy, is the 
cause. Spiritualism as a belief, or knowledge of facts, may be a 
philosophy ; but spiritualism as a religion, as a practical thing 
of life, and manifestation, is a reform in life, and exhibits itself 
in a reformation of body and actions. Every true spiritualist will 
strive to regulate his or her life by the true science of life and 
health, and, not following any visionary fanatic into any extremes, 
will consult science, and rely on her and the general experience 
of the race. Such will not take isolated cases of experience ; for 
by such it could be easily proved that a man should drink a quart 
of rum each day to be healthy, or that each should use a pound 
of tobacco per week. But they will take the aggregate testimony 
of the living and the dead, and, if corroborated by science, will 
make use of such to reform in life and condition this and succeeding 
generations. Then, as both philosophy and experience prove that 
the correspondence of tobacco is profanity, nervous irritation, 
poisonous and polluting effects and influence, and science proves 
25 



290 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

its effects ever evil, and only evil, on a human system, therefore 
the true spiritualist will refrain from its use, and discourage it in 
all others, by every mild and gentle effort, and kindly persuade all, 
as far as possible, to turn it out, with its undignified and ungentle- 
manly counterpart — profanity. As both science and experience 
establish the fact that intoxicating drinks are injurious, evil, per- 
nicious, and tend greatly to subvert and destroy human happiness 
by expressing their correspondence in strife, wrangling, quarrel- 
ling, fighting, both public and private, reaching its extreme in 
wars and murders ; therefore they should, and will, be abandoned 
by spiritualists, and all reasonable effort made, in kindness, 
mildness, and candor, to discountenance and discourage their use. 
As science and experience both prove that swine's flesh is invari- 
ably impregnated with pus and scrofulous matter, which is carried 
into the human body with it when used for food, and that human 
bodies are mainly composed of the material assimilated from the 
food ; and that thus " man grows like what he feeds on," and that 
we would not like to have our bodies, and the bodies of those we 
love, like swine's flesh, and with the mental expression in corres- 
pondence, of low, vulgar, bawdy and lustful stories, actions, and 
language ; therefore, all true spiritualists will avoid making 
swine's flesh an article of food, as far, and as fast, as convenient, 
especially for the young and tender forms of children, whose 
bodies and minds are being developed and matured for life, and 
whose happiness depends on purity, harmony, and health. 

As both science and experience prove that tea and coffee, steeped 
and drank in decoctions as a beverage, and especially hot, are 
extremely injurious to the nervous systems, especially of the 
young, and are very expensive to large families, and almost inva- 
riably destroy the teeth by being used as many families use them, 
— therefore, as a matter of economy and health, spiritualists will 
discourage and discontinue the use of these beverages, especially 
for the young, as far, and as fast, as convenient and practicable. 
As both science and experience teach that the human body, to 
enjoy health and happiness, does not require irritants or stimu- 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 291 

lants as condiments in food, and seldom requires stimulating food, 

— therefore spiritualists to be reformers, and, to be healthy and 
happy, will be temperate and prudent in the use of foods and 
drinks, and learn to live soberly, temperately, naturally, and eco- 
nomically, and by this means more easily accomplish the more 
important mental and spiritual reform which must bring the race 
into harmony. As science and experience both prove that anger, 
hatred, scorn, contempt, ridicule, jealousy, envy, malice, with 
their train of swearing, lying, gossipping, backbiting, &c, all tend 
to make society and persons unhappy, and those most so who use 
them most, — therefore all spiritualists, to be reformers, must 
dismiss all these enemies of peace and harmony from their own 
minds, and forever keep them out of the bill of fare served up to 
others ; for by these reforms only can the race be reformed — in the 
reform of the individuals, singly and severally. As both science 
and experience prove that the fragrant flower sheds most fragrance 
around its parent stem, and in the bush where it grew, so spiritu- 
alists, whose lives are reformed, and whose souls are full of love, 
will express most love and harmony about their homes, and to 
those with whom they are most associated, and draw to them most 
love in return from those with whom they deal most ; and thus 
spiritualists will become harmonized and reformed individuals, — 
harmonized and happy families, — harmonized and happy husbands 
and wives (whether in both legal and spiritual affinity, or not), 

— harmonized and happy parents, brothers, sisters, children, 
friends, members of society, and citizens ; and thus, when spiritu- 
alism shall reach, and do, for all people what it has done for the 
Lone One and his family, the world will be full of happy people, 
and the kingdom of heaven will be on earth, in the hearts of the 
people ; and all will thank Grod for life and existence, and love 
one another, — most the kindred, beginning with the nearest ; 
next, the friends ; next, the strangers ; and last and least, the 
enemies (if there be any) ; and thus love all, and hate none. 
Then all will feel this world is but a " stepping-stone to brighter 
worlds above." Then sweetly and beautifully will each one ap- 



292 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

proach and pass that time and event when he or she will be " free, 
free from the shell." 

" The ivy in a dungeon grew, 
Unfed by rain, uncheered by dew ; 
Its pallid leaflets only drank 
Cave-moistures foul and odors dank. 

" But through the dungeon-grating high 
There fell a sunbeam from the sky ; 
It slept upon the grateful floor, 
In silent gladness, evermore. 

" The ivy felt a tremor shoot 
Through all its fibres to the root ; 
It felt the light, it saw the ray, 
It strove to blossom into day. 

" It grew, it crept, it pushed, it clomb ; 
Long had the darkness been its home ; 
But well it knew, though veiled in night, 
The goodness and the joy of light. 

" Its clinging roots grew deep and strong ; 
Its stem expanded firm and long ; 
And in the currents of the air 
Its tender branches flourished fair. 

" It reached the beam, it thrilled, it curled, 
It blessed the warmth that cheers the world ; 
It rose toward the dungeon-bars ; 
It looked upon the sun and stars. 

" It felt the life of bursting spring, 
It heard the happy sky-lark sing ; 
It caught the breath of morns and eves, 
And wooed the swallow to its leaves. 

" By rains and dews and sunshine fed, 
Over the outer walls it spread ; 
And, in the day-beam waving free, 
It grew into a steadfast tree. 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 293 

" Upon that solitary place 
Its verdure threw adorning grace ; 
The mating birds became its guests, 
And sang its praises from their nests. 

M Would st know the moral of the rhyme ? — 
Behold the Heavenly Light, and climb ! 
To every dungeon comes a ray 
Of God's determinable day." 

25* 



CHARACTER OF THE LONE ONE, 

PSYCHOMETRICALLY DELINEATED BY ANNE DENTON CRIDGE, OE DAY- 
TON, OHIO, 1857. 

FROM A LETTER PRESENTED BY A FRIEND. 



Large language; expresses himself readily and with ease. 
Composition well developed and active ; in connection with lan- 
guage, can express his thoughts in writing as well as verbally. 
Lower perceptives full, upper perceptives average. Reflective 
faculties large and active. Has a healthy brain, but it looks as 
if the frontal lobe had been of late somewhat overtaxed. Has a 
comprehensive mind ; reasons and argues not from a small circle 
of facts, but from a large and varied collection. He is always 
more anxious for the truth than to make out a case. He does not 
build up a theory in his mind, and then look around to see what 
arguments he can find to sustain it ; but builds upon facts, and 
gathers from the whole of nature. Has a good faculty for analy- 
sis, correspondence, collecting and applying, &c. Rather large 
benevolence ; a strong nerve-aura current passes from it to the 
intellect, and follows where the intellect approves and directs. From 
the posterior portion of benevolence, I perceive another current 
flowing through spirituality to concentrativeness ; a current from 
firmness unites with it ; these united currents flow to the reflect- 
ive faculties, and these organs act together in some way, but I do 
not exactly understand how ; I should think that, as it passes 
through spirituality, he is philanthropic in a spiritual and reforma- 
tory direction. Veneration about average. Firmness large. Com- 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 295 

bativeness rather large. Destructiveness small ; but acts vigorously 
with the frontal lobe. Acquisitiveness full ; would like to make 
money and do well, but wants to make it in connection with pro- 
gressive and reformatory labors. Warm and well-developed back- 
head. Philoprogenitiveness quite active, but the organ not promi- 
nent ; is fond of children, and pleasant and mirthful among them. 
Concentrativeness large ; it acts vigorously in connection with the 
frontal lobe. Self-esteem full. Attachment to home, to place, 
strong. Conjugality rather large ; it aches somewhat ; there is a 
feeling of sadness in connection therewith. Amativeness quite 
full ; it is pure, and acts through conjugality and the intellect. Is 
a great admirer of intellectual women, and would be likely to 
express it. 



SPECIMEN OF HIS PHILOSOPHY IN LECTURES. 

Religion, like all, or nearly all, of nature's exhibitions, has a 
trinitarian development, and expresses usually, in the individual 
and the race, three distinct phases, or planes. The first and low- 
est form is Idolatry, or the introduction of a God to the mind. 
This embraces all forms of worship in which devotion is paid 
to an object, a thing, a person, or a being, which the wor- 
shipper calls God. It does not change the nature or char- 
acter of the devotion to change the substance of which the 
God is composed. Whether it be of clay, or stone, or wood, or gold, 
or flesh, or spirit, or the most refined element of which a form can 
be constituted, the object is still an Idol. The character, qual- 
ity, and composition, of the thing, or being, only determines the 
degree of taste and refinement in the worshipper. It is still 
idolatry, so long, and so far, as it conveys or attaches devotion 
to an object as God. A God, or the God, always denotes an 
object, and expresses Idolatry. These expressions always point to 
an object, and every object can be comprehended by the mind, or 
surrounded, which is to comprehend, in the sense we use the term. 
Every being, person, or thing, has diameter and circumference, 
and by these we can measure every object, whether we call it God 
or any other name. It does not remove the worshipper from Idol- 
atry to place the being out of the reach of the person worship- 
ping. It is truly a low form of Paganism to carry a God about 
one's person, but not so far removed from the practice of carrying 
the revealed will in a book about the person, as some human beings 
do, as some might suppose. It is as really Idol-worship to send 
the veneration to the sun or stars, as to a car of Juggernaut, or a 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 297 

statue of Diana, to a Temple, Church, or Throne of Grace. Phi- 
losophically speaking, it is the same phase of devotion to worship 
a Christ, or a spiritual being set up in the ideal world beyond the 
external sight and senses, as to worship a stone or wooden God. 
The composition and quality of the object can never alter or 
change the nature of the devotion, nor can the place where you 
set up your object or image change, in the least degree, the char- 
acter of the worship. A degree of progress in the individual or 
worshipper is all that is manifested by these conditions. It is an 
evidence of our advanced idolatry to place the God in the ideal 
sphere, and compose his body of a rare and highly etherealized 
element. Nor does it change the nature of the devotion from 
idolatry to increase the real or supposed power and attributes of 
the God. Every man clothes his God with such attributes as 
his capacity can furnish, nor can do more. There are men now 
living on the earth whose power and capacity exceeds that of 
many Gods which, or who, have received the devotion of mortals; 
and there are, no doubt, millions of beings whose conditions are 
vastly superior to any idea now entertained by a mortal of a per- 
sonal God. The man who carries his God in his pocket, or tied 
up in his hair, clothes him from his own mind with all the attri- 
butes, and qualifies, with all the good adjectives his storehouse 
can supply, and a Chapin, or Beecher, or a Parker, if they have 
a God, can* do no more. They have placed their God, or Gods, 
(for I am not sure they all worship the same one) a little further 
from us or from their hearers ; made him, or them, of a little finer 
material, and ideally clothed them with more and higher attri- 
butes, each and all in accordance with their refinement, mental 
development, and the age and country in which they live and 
preach. There is no reason or philosophy which can terminate 
Idolatry with the composition, position, or attributes, of the object 
worshipped ; and no reasoning mind will ever attempt to define 
where Idolatry ends, and leaves an object and centralized devotion, 
on a being, or thing, or individual. 

Let no one accuse me of treating his form of worship as a sin, 



298 LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 

or even as an evil. It is not more a sin to be an Idolater than it 
is to be a child. It is the childhood of Keligion, and as natural 
and legitimate as our physical childhood ; and as naturally pre. 
cedes our higher religious expressions as the physical wants pre- 
cede the mental and spiritual, or as the demands of our physical 
nature precede those of our intellectual. All men are by nature 
religious, and first Idolaters. A human being without veneration 
would be what nature cannot furnish. It is an essential part of 
all and every human being. Persons in one plane do not always 
perceive it in those of another plane, and hence term them Atheists; 
but in a true, an absolute, and a philosophical sense, there never 
was, and never can be, an Atheist. The honest and sincere devo- 
tion given to the highest object we can conceive of, is true religion, 
or true devotion ; and is all that can be required of any person. 

More than nine tenths of the human race on earth at this time 
are in the plane of Idolatry ; and a vast and almost innumerable 
host of those who have left the earth are also in this plane ; for 
a change of body does not always change the religion of the 
mind. All forms of sectarian Christianity are Idolatry in a 
refined form, and far advanced from some of the Pagan forms of 
worship, and perhaps below some of the wild Red men ; for the 
Indians of our continent actually had a great Spirit-God, ideally 
superior to the Incarnate God of most Christians. All persons 
and the race will as legitimately grow out of these forms of Idol- 
atry as they grow out of child-stature, or child- clothes ; and they 
would be very much like the boy in his father's boots, coat, and 
hat, to get on a higher form before they had outgrown this. 
When we become men and women mentally, we shall put away 
childish things. The doll-pet of the little girl, and the top-toys 
of the boy, are laid aside, for real children, and real dogs, 
horses, &c. So will your little Idol-God be laid aside and neg- 
lected for a real conception of God, — not a God, or the God, but 
God I Idolatry, too, has its three-fold expression. Its sensual or 
material phase, in which its devotion is paid in sacrifices or offer- 
ings of beasts, or grain, or gold and valuables, as an atonement, 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 299 

to obtain thereby a forgiveness. And, second, in prayers and cer- 
emonies, personal sufferings, pilgrimages, penance, vows, deeds of 
charity, flattery, and personal sacrifices. And, third, belief in 
creeds, doctrines, dogmas, Christ's atonement, the love of God, 
and the forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake. There is really no 
less Idolatry in one than the other, but only a different degree of 
Idolatrous devotion. It is not less an Idolatry to worship a Holy 
Ghost than to worship the Ghost of Hamlet, or Banquo, of 
Moses, or Swedenborg, or Cobbett. It is only in degree ; for it is 
ghosts, and only ghosts, whether you apply the term Holy, or any 
other term, so long as it is a being, or person, or thing, even 
though placed in the spiritual, or elemental, or ideal life. Again, 
I repeat, that in classing Christianity with, or rather in, Idolatry, 
I am not condemning it as sinful, or wicked, or bad ; but, on the 
other hand, I esteem it as a virtue to be a sincere Christian, and 
to express the honest devotion of the soul in that higher or high- 
est phase of the religion of childhood. God, angels, spirits, 
could expect no more than the honest devotion of the heart 
up to its maximum capacity ; and he that gives this does all his 
religious duty, and fulfils the requirements of his devotional 
nature ; when, and as, the capacity changes, the quality, not 
always the quantity, of devotion will change, and new ideas, per- 
ceptions, appreciations, and capacities, will change the expression 
of our devotion, always growing and refining with our knowledge. 
Many modern Christians, honest in their devotions, and rising to 
their highest capacities and appreciations, suppose they have 
attained the perfect and ultimate system of devotion, and thus all 
the world must come to their standard ; but this is also the case 
with many planes below them. The Mormon, and Mahometan, 
and Pagan, each expect the same for their religion, and with 
equal propriety, except that the best phases of sectarian Chris- 
tianity are in advance, and one or two sects are on the very verge 
of the next phase ; as, for instance, Unitarianism, running through 
Theodore Parker and Ralph Waldo Emerson, grows into the next 
phase, or Pantheism. 



300 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

It is of no consequence that those who are blind cannot gee 
religion in these advanced phases, or in Pantheism. Emerson is 
not less religious than Bishop Hughes, or Dr. Dewey ; nor is any 
full-blown Pantheist less a man of devotion than the veriest 
Pagan Idolater. He worships in another phase of devotion and 
development. The lowest forms of Idolatry require a visible and 
tangible God. The worshipper must see and feel his God. A lit- 
tle further along, and he can dispense with the feeling, or tangibil- 
ity, but must see the God-Sun, or Moon, Ark, or Holy object ; 
then a little further, and he can give up the sight to the seer, or 
prophet, or priest, and send and receive messages through these 
mediums ; then a little further, and he can dispense with all sight, 
and lodge his God in the ideal realm, far away from sight and 
sense, and then send ail his devotion and bestow it on the Idol- 
God in the ideal realm ; then loses it or the God entirely, and 
becomes a Pantheist, or a creature of growth and natural devel- 
opment; leaving off the small-clothes, and little and big idols, 
he becomes a man in religion. 

All belief in special incarnations, special providences, interpo- 
sitions, and Divine Providences, miraculous manifestations, and 
supernatural powers, actions, and exhibitions, belongs to Idolatry, 
and its personal God, in some of its forms. The Pantheist dis- 
cards all these, as the developed mind does the phantoms and gob- 
lins of the boy and the dark. Idolatry is the religion of ignorance 
and innocence, which pertain to childhood, in the individual or the 
race. It is made up of especialities. The God is an especially, 
and especially endowed, and makes especial manifestations, and 
has especial favorites and pets in this life, and the next, if there 
be a next ; for all idolaters do not believe in a next life. God is 
personal, and of course tangible to some of the senses, physical or 
mental ; for all who believe in a God must have one with form, 
and of course possessed of diameter and circumference, and thus 
be comprehensible by the mind. A chosen God can have a chosen 
people, a band of chosen servants, and he will of course bestow 
favors on his pets and favorites. There is really very little differ- 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 301 

ence between the children playing with their pets and the God 
playing with the devotees in the phase of Idolatry, or the devotee 
treating of his God and his attributes, and laws and dealings with 
man. Both are good enough, and proper in their places, but are 
poorly adapted to manhood. One more century, with the ratio of 
progress of the last ten years, in our country, will be sufficient to 
carry the Idolatry from our nation to the museum, where it may 
be preserved as a relic of the early time, and as precious as the 
bones of saints in the cathedrals of the Mother Church. The dim 
Bible-light will be superseded by a bright sun-light, and the Idol- 
God will make way for other and higher worship. The swaddling- 
bands will be laid aside, the "leading-strings" cut asunder, and 
men will walk out of these Idol-creeds in freedom of thought and 
expansion of mind, and will no longer need a God to carry in the 
pocket, or to sit in the temple, or to reign on a throne of ivory or 
gold in the ideal realm. Pocket-idols and pocket-revelations will 
lose their especial sacredness, and man will no longer bow in 
prayer to Gods of wood or stone, or sun or stars, or beast or man, 
or spirit, or ghost, or king, or being, here, or anywhere ; but he 
will not have less devotion or veneration than now, nor be less 
religious and virtuous, but far more, and have and express a far 
higher and better devotion than in this phase of Idolatry. I am 
aware this seems terrible infidelity to an Idolater, but it must come. 
The second phase of Keligious devotion, or Pantheism, is the 
religion of intellect. Some persons, and indeed most persons, in 
the plane of Idolatry, suppose there is no devotion or religion in 
Pantheism ; but this is only because they cannot see in this intel- 
lectual religion the devotion of their own phase. The real Pan- 
theist is as much and as really a man of religion and devotion as 
the Idolater. Some persons are born with organizations adapted 
to, and which carry them into this phase as soon as the brain is 
ripened, even without any action or reading on the subject, save 
what is presented in nature. These persons are often very much 
blamed by devotees at the shrine of Idolatry, and are often called 
reprobates in religion. But the majority of persons reach this 
26 



302 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

phase by the exercise of the intellect. Most of the distinguished 
scientific and metaphysical minds who have lived during the last 
two hundred years have been in this plane of religion, because 
their reasoning powers were too much unfolded to remain in the 
plane of Idolatry. Idolatry reasons little. Pantheism reasons 
much. Some leading minds in the churches have also reached 
this phase, but expediency and the condition of the minds of the 
great body of the devotees have usually prevented them from 
expressing their real belief. Indeed, one declaration or admission 
of many religious writers, and speakers leads directly to Pantheism, 
viz., the immateriality of God, of mind, and of the spirit-world ; for 
this is equivalent in science to a denial of their existence, except as 
admitted by the Pantheist as connected with and expressed in the 
material and tangible substance of earth, and other bodies like it 
in substance. The Pantheist has no personal God, no individ- 
ualized or special incarnation, and, in fact, no incarnation at all ; 
for to him mind or its exhibition is a phenomenon of matter, and, 
like the shadow, disappears when the substance is removed which 
presented it. To the developed Pantheist, or the worshipper in 
the first plane of this phase, the earth and all appurtenances there- 
unto belonging is God ; all the God there is, he says, because this 
is all that he can recognize as real existence. But the more 
expanded mind takes in the stellar region, and some of the ele- 
mental substances which fill the apparent space between these 
bodies. To these substances they attribute as causes all motion, 
life, sensation, and intelligence, because they only find them 
expressed in and through this kind and condition of existence, 
They deny the absolute existence of mind, because they could not 
find it with the scalpel or in the crucible of the chemist. They found 
no more difficulty in accounting for the magnificent motions and 
exact order of the solar and other systems, as resulting from the 
orbs themselves, than they found in accounting for the exhibitions 
of mind in man, or instinct in animals and plants ; and they could 
no more find God by dissecting the systems of worlds, than they 
could find mind by dissecting the man ; and hence they worshipped 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 303 

the negative side of the universe, because it only was tangible to 
their faculties, and could thus be reached. All they could get 
evidence of, as an existence, was to them God, and they let their 
devotions flow to the material or negative side of creation as God. 
They took the Pagan's Idol and melted it, to show him there was 
no God about it, more than about any other lump of clay, or stone, 
or gold. They pointed the sun-worshipper to other suns, to show 
him his was not God, or, if so, only one of many. They pointed 
the worshipper of Christ to his defects, — submission to material 
law, and to the precepts and examples of other good men, — to show 
he was no more God, or a God, than other men ; and while they 
refused to worship him, they esteemed him according to his merits, 
as they understood them. They denied and entirely repudiated 
the Divine revelation of the Christians, by producing positive 
proof from science of its errors, absurdities, and falsehoods. They 
melted down and dissolved all forms of Idolatry by reason, as the 
sun does a frost in a clear morning. Pantheism in good hands 
was always invincible to Idolatry, and in every contest left its 
victim floored, or skulked away behind the superstition and igno- 
rance of the age. All miracles and especial providences were 
declared to be either natural occurrences, or not to have occurred 
at all. Under this phase of religion, superstition and Idolatry 
seemed to be fading fast, and Pantheism seemed destined to tri- 
umph as the religion of manhood and age for the earth. It did 
not necessarily deny a spiritual or elemental life, but usually de- 
nied it because it had not sufficient tangible evidence to sustain 
and defend it. A few Pantheists were, however, believers in a 
spirit-life as succeeding this, but had no conception of its duration, 
or of the conditions of its existence. The principles of philosophy, 
the laws of nature, the demonstrations of science, the facts of 
experience, the conclusions of reason, were the creeds, the liturgy, 
the belief, the prayer-book, of the Pantheist ; and with these he 
could and does overthrow all structures of Idolatry and supersti- 
tious devotion to a personal and Idol God, and especial revelations 
and providences. The distinguished men and women of Europe 



304 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

and America, who have stood out on the face of society in bold 
relief during the last two hundred years, have been mostly Pan- 
theists in religion ; and they have not been wanting in devotion, 
but have only been wanting in Idolatry. Pantheism has at last 
met a foeraan " worthy of its steel," and one before which it 
falls as Idolatry does before its potent weapons — a phase and 
system of religion holding to it the same relation it holds to Idol- 
atry, and that is termed Spiritualism, or more appropriately Har- 
monialism. Idolatry fears, cringes, prays — never reasons. Pan- 
theism reasons, respects, admires. Spiritualism reasons, admires, 
loves, venerates, sees, and feels. Pantheism made God of all 
material substance, and mind a manifestation. Spiritualism 
incarnates God in all and every form and substance of matter, 
and receives and believes God the motive-power of all manifest- 
ations. 

This third phase, to which I have now so legitimately arrived, 
has its correspondence in wisdom, in the judicial power, in the 
conjugal relation of the sexes, in religion. It is the ultimate and 
truly harmonial condition and age of man in the individual or the 
race, and in its religious devotion gives the superior expression to 
this high and natural desire of our nature. Spiritualism supplies 
to the material universe the other side and half of itself, and 
gives us the true form and condition of ourselves and the world. 
To use a figure, Idolatry was the Garden of Eden and its pair of 
especial pets ; Pantheism was the flat earth and the tribes and 
nations, and spiritualism is the globe and its races, with distinct 
and numerous origins. Spiritualism supplies to the universe the 
real, substantial, and material condition of mind, and its action on, 
and, in the negative substance, called, for convenience' sake, mat- 
ter, and exhibits forms aggregating, sublimating, and segregating, 
continually and eternally, without diminution or increase of either 
mind or matter, and forever producing in this contact and action 
motion, life, sensation, intelligence, and development ; and thus a 
new phase of devotion is presented, another side to man individu- 
ally and collectively, and to all tangible existence a positive is 



LIFE-LINE OE THE LONE ONE. 305 

supplied to its negative, and the harmony of the universe is at 
last discovered. Spiritualism admits all the principles and demon- 
strations of Pantheism, and supplies to it what it always lacked 
and felt the need of, — an active and motive power, with intelli- 
gence to account for intelligence in objects ; for Pantheism could 
never show how intelligence could come from a source entirely 
devoid of it ; and while it could easily show the fallacy and de- 
fects in Idolatry, it often became entangled in its own reasonings, 
and found a web of its own construction holding it in meshes too 
strong for its power. 

The Spiritual or Harmonial philosophy did not supply a per- 
sonal God to worship, but it did supply Divine Mind to the Infi- 
nite universe, and it was like letting in the sunlight upon the dark- 
ened earth. It also found and established the existence of a 
human mind to each human form, and of course, according to 
fixed principles of philosophy and Pantheism, proved it could 
never be annihilated, or cease to exist. It also found why and 
how the exhibitions of intelligence could legitimately find expres- 
sion in the universe and in man. Spiritualism carried the devo- 
tion of those who had reached it to Divine Mind, and found God, 
or mind, everywhere, in every form of which the senses or the 
reason could take cognizance, forever revealing law and order, facts 
and truths, to each, and through each, individual form. It had 
no difficulty in proving immortality for man, for it found in him 
a mind, and a unit, or entity, and forever indissoluble ; and while 
he acted on, and in, a negative form of matter as a body, — an 
aggregation only temporarily, — he had in himself eternal duration, 
and might safely say he was possessed of all power in heaven and 
in earth ; for he was positive to all conditions of matter below 
himself, and could use each form and leave it without being him- 
self lost or destroyed by the separation of the parts which com- 
posed his body ; and, deprived of one form, he could aggregate 
and organize another of similar or dissimilar matter, and again 
enjoy for a season, in it, a sunshine of existence, as Divine Mind 
does in worlds. 

26* 



306 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

The true infinity was now introduced to the mind and compre- 
hension of man by spiritualism, or, what would be more proper, 
if an ism must be used, mentalism. Many persons call themselves 
spiritualists who are only Idolaters, and some who are Panthe- 
ists ; but the true Harmonial man, or real spiritualist, has out- 
grown all these child-clothes, and has no Idol in book or image, 
but has God or Mind in everything and everywhere, and ever 
worships the Infinite and the everywhere-God, — not the throne- 
God, or the God of Moses and the Jews, nor the Jesus of the 
Christians, nor the earth, or earths, of the Pantheist, — but his God 
is, and was, and will be, when all these forms change or dissolve 
and reunite in other forms. The never-changing mind of the 
Universe, ever changing matter and acting on it in forms, becomes 
God, and draws out the devotion of the true spiritualist, and it 
can be expressed anywhere, and any time ; for Divine Mind is 
really omnipresent and omnipervading. No century-rule used to 
measure time can determine the age, nor any league-rule find and 
determine the diameter. I use the masculine sometimes, because 
mind is masculine or positive, and not because Idolaters usually 
have a man-God, or God-man, to worship. Mind is always mas- 
culine, matter always feminine, and cohesion is the sexual expres- 
sion of a certain condition and combination of mind and matter. 
So is life, and sensation, and intelligence, each in its respective 
plane ; but of these I shall speak more properly in another lec- 
ture. 

I have now laid out these three phases, and every human being 
is paying his or her devotion in one of the three ; and each may 
register and station, or examine and report himself or herself, where, 
and as, he or she pleases, at leisure. All are on the line, and all 
have devotion, and all do express it. All persons do pray, for prayer 
is only wish, or desire, and no person can exist without it, nor can 
any person express devotionally this prayer to a thing, or power, 
or existence, which he or she believes to be inferior or only equal 
to self. The answer or response to prayer may be expected 
through or from an equal, or even inferior ; but some power is 



LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 307 

recognized as superior, and acting on and through the instrument. 
Fear is the peculiar attribute of Idolatry. It ceases in Pantheism, 
and in independence and manhood. Try, and do, reason and learn, 
are the peculiar attributes of Pantheism. Love, deep, sincere, fear- 
less, ardent, and overflowing, is the peculiar attribute of the spirit- 
ual religion. All* fear ceases in the mind of the true spiritualist. 
Death, hell, and the grave, lose all their terrors, and man has only 
love in the place of fear, and looks to each change which nature 
provides and presents to him as a step leading higher, and to a still 
better condition for enjoyment. He fears no terrors of the law, 
and expects no particular day of judgment ; but every day is his 
day of judgment. He has no tyrant, with iron rod and shining 
crown of diamonds, to appease ; but an ever-present mind, smil- 
ing through immutable laws, which are ever working out happiness 
for each being who is in harmony with them. He depends on con- 
dition for happiness, not on belief or faith, and ever tries to put 
himself in true relations with the laws of nature and God. To 
the Idolater the spiritualist is like the Pantheist, Infidel, because 
he has no personal God ; and is to such person what the Christian 
with his spirit-God, or Holy Ghost, is to the Pagan with his visi- 
ble Idol — the latter cannot see or touch the Christian's God, and 
hence concludes he has none. So the Christian cannot compre- 
hend or mentally recognize, measure, and surround, the Infinite 
Divine Mind, and hence concludes spiritualists have no God, and 
little or no devotion ; but manhood will dissipate these toy-Gods, 
for the individual and the race, and spiritualism will introduce 
God to the Pantheist. Every person with a body weighing two 
hundred pounds, and measuring six feet in length, is not a man or 
woman ; for many such are only children, even after they have 
been to college, and come out with a parchment and honors ; and 
indeed these colleges are, to use again a figure, places where a 
band of unyielding metal is often put around the head to hold 
from expansion the intellect, and expand the perceptions in dig- 
ging roots of Greek and Latin ; or to send up, like a sugar-loaf, 
the veneration in Idolatrous devotion, instead of cultivating, in a 



308 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

natural way, the true growth of brain, and thus the real and true 
religion of manhood. Spiritualism must and will renovate and 
change entirely our system of education, and bring our colleges 
up to, and into, the teaching of the religion of manhood, or spirit- 
ualism. Every person is an Idolater, a Pantheist, or Spiritualist. 
Reader, which art thou ? If either of the two first, there is work 
before thee, and the tools are ready at thy hand, and thy power is 
ample to use them ; and in thy lower plane of devotion thou canst 
not know the beauty and joy of the higher and more unfolded life 
and religion of the third phase until thou hast tasted it. Learn, 
grow, develop, unfold thy powers and faculties, and become a 
spiritualist in its true and real sense, and come to the knowledge 
of the truth as it is in the Harmonial Philosophy ! 



AN ANGEL'S VISIT. 

BY HATTIE. 

An Angel came to me, one night, 

In glorious beauty clothed, 
And with sweet words of hope and joy 

My way-worn spirit soothed. 

He fanned my cheek and burning brow, 
And cooled my fevered brain, 

And with his own deep music-voice 
Sang many a loving strain. 

He bade me ask for any gift 

Within his power to give : 
For death's cold arms to bear me hence, 

Or countless years to live ; 

For riches, honors, and domains, 
A sceptre, crown, and throne ; 

For friends with loving hearts to twine 
Around my happy home. 

"Not these, dear Angel bright," I cried : 
" From each and all I '11 part, 

If thou 'It bestow that richer gift, 
A pure and spotless heart." 

The Angel smiled (with such a smile 

As only angels have) ; 
Then, sighing low, a diamond glass 

Into my hand he gave. 

" 0, mine is not the power," he said, 
" To fit thy heart for heaven ; 

The gift to purify thy soul 
Unto thyself is given. 



810 LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. 

" But look within the faithful glass 
That I have given thee, 

And there within thy outer self 
Thy inner self thou 'It see." 

I looked — 't was strange, but there I sa 
Two beings joined in one ; 

For clearly through the outer shell 
A radiant spirit shone. 

Long, long I gazed, and years on years 
Seemed there to pass away, 

But still I saw that spirit bright 
Grow brighter, day by day. 

At last 't was free — free from the shell 
That dimmed its brilliant glow, 

And upward flew on angel-wings, 
And left the shell below. 



\ 



